Same-sex parenting is not normal, a senior member of the far-right party expected to win Italy’s election on Sunday has suggested, casting a fresh spotlight on its socially conservative agenda. The remarks from Federico Mollicone, culture spokesman for Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI), triggered outrage from political opponents and on social media as Meloni looks poised to become Italy’s first female prime minister. Speaking in a television interview with San Marino’s Rtv late on Thursday, Mollicone revived criticism he had previously expressed of an episode of the popular children’s cartoon “Peppa Pig” that featured a polar bear with two mothers. “It is a very serious issue,” Mollicone said. “As long as the Italian state does not legislate on these couples, presenting them as something absolutely normal is wrong, because it is not.” He went on to say that “in Italy homosexual couples are not legal, are not allowed” – despite the country having legalised same-sex civil unions in 2016 with a reform that FdI opposed in parliament.