Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said yesterday he would stop the registration of gay marriages contracted abroad because it was against the law.

He told RTL radio station that he had sent out a circular ordering cities to remove gay marriages from their registries, and if they did not comply the government would step in and annul them.

He said, ‘In Italy, same-sex marriage isn’t possible, so if people of the same sex get married, those marriages can’t be transcribed into the Italian State civil registries, for the simple fact that the law doesn’t allow it.’

Several cities have said they would disobey the order.

The Local news network quoted Virginio Merola, mayor of Bologna, as saying, ‘If they want to annul the transcriptions of marriages contracted abroad, let them.

‘I won’t take my signature off…So let them do it but not in the name of Bologna, which I represent. I won’t obey.’

Naples’ city government said it would appeal the order.

‘The circular annulling the transcriptions is contrary to the Constitutional principle of equal rights,’ the city council said.

Matteo Orfini, chairman of the Democratic Party, tweeted, ‘Dear Angelino Alfano, instead of annulling the registrations of gay marriages let’s try to make them possible in Italy too.’

However, Umberto Di Primio, the mayor of Chieti and a member of Alfano’s conservative New Centre Right party, supported the move.

He said, ‘I respect the law, minister Alfano has made the right decision.’

‘Marriage is between a man and a woman… as our Constitution envisages’