italian here. This story is old, and there is some nuance. The law cited here is not about gay people specifically, but about unmarried people - they can only adopt children with disabilities or special cases. Sexual preferences are irrelevant, in fact this man was able to adopt without much trouble - the only reason the story was reported is because he wrote a book about it, to help bigoted people change their views. The real issue is that gay marriage with full rights is still impossible in Italy, so gay people can only adopt those children, on paper. In practice nowadays judges allow also stepchild adoption with some interpretation of existing laws, so that's another possibility for gays.
Huh?