The majority of Italians appear to disagree with the Church's views on homosexuality, according to a poll out Tuesday.
The survey, released in the midst of a Vatican offensive against government plans to give rights to gay couples, showed that 64% of Italians regard homosexuality as a "natural condition".
Just under 30% said they felt it was "unnatural".
The poll, carried out by the monthly magazine Focus, found that 76% of respondents were in favour of gays being open about their homosexuality and 95% were open to friendships with homosexuals and lesbians.
The survey was released just as a Senate committee began its examination of a draft bill which would give certain rights to cohabiting couples, including same-sex ones.
The bill, dubbed the DICO, was approved by Premier Romano Prodi's cabinet last month in line with its election programme but has nonetheless created deep divisions in the nine-party, Communists-to-Catholics governing coalition.
While leftists and secular-minded coalition lawmakers have championed the DICO, Catholics and pro-Vatican centrists including Justice Minister Clemente Mastella are firmly against it.
The Silvio Berlusconi-led opposition has also attacked the bill, taking the Church's line that it undermines the institution of marriage and traditional family values.
Msgr. Elio Sgreccia, head of the Pontifical Council for Life, said on Monday that it was the "duty of Italian Catholics" to defeat the DICO and any other such laws.
He added that giving rights to same-sex couples would "go against natural law".
The extent of parliamentary hostility to the DICO will make it difficult for the bill to pass the Senate, where Prodi holds only one more seat than the opposition.
The debate has also exposed the amount of anti-gay prejudice still lingering in the Italian parliament.
PRODI SENATOR SAYS HOMOSEXUALITY "DEVIATION".
At the weekend, Senator Paola Binetti, a member of the second biggest party in government, the Daisy, branded homosexuality a "deviation of the personality" during a television talk show.
"In my opinion, it represents 'different' behaviour - very different from the norm as written in our morphological, genetic, endocrinological and character code," she said.
Binetti is a member of the conservative Catholic organisation Opus Dei and one of the so-called Teodems (theological democrats) in Prodi's coalition.
While her comments sparked outrage among gay rights' groups, who said she was "racist", they barely caused a ripple among other MPs.
Her party chief, Culture Minister and Deputy Premier Francesco Rutelli, said the senator had to "learn to measure her words" while praising her as a "woman of great intelligence and honesty".
Rutelli, whose Daisy party is centrist and Catholic, went on to anger DICO supporters by saying the bill should be placed on the back burner because "the government has other priorities at the moment".
Left-wing MP Franco Grillini, a veteran gay rights' campaigner, attacked Rutelli's reaction, asking: "Does this mean Rutelli's party accepts behaviour which discriminates against and slanders homosexuals?"
Gay rights' organisation Arcigay, of which Grillini is honorary chairman, urged Catholics to mark their distance from Binetti by joining a pro-DICO march in Rome on Saturday.
"The time of silence is over. Those who do not contest such stances are accomplices in a hate campaign unseen since the tragic times of Nazism," Arcigay said.
Arcigay has frequently condemned the Italian parliament as "homophobic", most notably during the international row sparked in 2004 by opposition centrist Catholic Rocco Buttiglione, who was rejected as a candidate for the European Commission after describing homosexuality as a "sin".
PRO-DICO WEEKEND DEMO.
A host of politicians and celebrities are taking part in the Rome demo, including Nobel literature prize winner Dario Fo and his actress wife and senator, Franca Rame.
Green house Whip Angelo Bonelli, whose party is part of the governing coalition, said that "rights for cohabiting couples are standard in the rest of Europe... A modern, European-style law is needed which gives rights to those who currently do not have them".
Italy is one of the few countries in the European Union which does not recognise unwed couples or same-sex unions.
Under the terms of the DICO bill, they would be able to register their union, obtaining certain financial and inheritance rights and 'next of kin' rights if their loved one is physically or mentally incapacitated or in hospital.
Prodi must have the full support of his coalition if the DICO bill is to pass the Senate without opposition help.
The premier has already said he will not put the measure to a confidence vote, which would allow rebel Catholic allies to vote against it without putting the government at risk.
Prodi's fragile nine-month-old government has just emerged from a crisis caused by coalition feuding over foreign policy.
Although Prodi subsequently passed confidence votes in the House and Senate which reconfirmed him as premier, his hold on power remains weak due to his razor-thin Senate majority and continual disagreements among his nine allies.
