It’s a touching scene, liable to make any parent a little weepy. Milo’s two dads hold him close, their faces awash with emotion as they meet their baby boy for the first time.

In 2014, a photo of Toronto couple BJ Barone and Frankie Nelson cradling their newborn went viral.

“That image has probably been seen in every country,” said Lindsay Foster, who took the photo and is a friend of Milo’s surrogate mom.

But not all that viral attention has been positive, as politicians in Ireland and Italy have used the birth photo in their campaigns against same-sex parenthood and surrogacy.

“My cousin in Italy had messaged me and said that we were just being talked about on the TV and they were showing our picture again,” said Barone.

The conservative Italian Fratelli d’Italia-Alleanza Nazionale party and its youth wing had found the photo online and used it, without permission, in their campaign against gay parenthood.

That was two weeks ago, Barone said. Then, last week, the couple was informed via Twitter that independent Irish politician Mary Fitzgibbon had been using their photos in advance of Ireland’s Feb. 26 general election.

Fitzgibbon’s platform included opposing surrogacy for gay parents.

“It was mostly about gay couples, men, having babies, because we’re [supposedly] denying the right of the child to have a mother,” Barone said.

“Everything that we had stood for and we were fighting for… gay rights and rights for fathers to have children, now these photos are being used for the exact opposite,” he added.

Foster, a Kingston, Ont.-area photographer, said she posted the images, with her watermark, on her Facebook page in 2014.

That Fitzgibbon, who did not win a seat in the Irish election, used the photo is unfair to Frankie and BJ, Foster said.

Barone told the Star he has tweeted back and forth with Fitzgibbon, to tell her Milo has “more than enough love,” even without a mother.

“And I invited Mary over,” said Barone. “I said, ‘You know what? We’re more than happy for you to come here to Toronto so you can meet our family and see that… a child does not need to have a mother and a father.’”

Nelson said he would love for all their critics to come to their house and meet Milo.

“He’s one of the happiest little boys you’ll ever meet,” Nelson said. “I can’t see how he’s missing out on anything.”

The dads say they’re trying to look at the positive side of this episode in their lives.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“Hopefully it will bring awareness around surrogacy and same-sex couples,” Barone said. “And a lot of people, they’re still uneducated, right? So I think it’s a good opportunity for us to show the world that family is family.”

With files from Laura DaSilva