ARGENTINA/FILE: Argentine gay couple becomes first to wed in Latin America

Record ID: 277187

  • Title: ARGENTINA/FILE: Argentine gay couple becomes first to wed in Latin America
  • Date: 29th December 2009
  • Summary: CLOSE OF GAY COUPLE KISSING MORE OF PEOPLE AT GAY PRIDE PARADE FREYRE AND DI BELLO AT THE FRONT OF THE PARADE WEARING RED RIBBON SASHES
  • Embargoed: 13th January 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Legal System
  • Reuters ID: LVABQZI9JWDPN2741KYZPA1OQ93W
  • Story Text: At the end of the world, two Argentine men become the first homosexual couple to marry in Latin America's first legal homosexual wedding.
    Two Argentine men wed in Latin America's first same-sex marriage on Monday (December 28) despite a court ruling earlier this month that blocked their marriage plans.
    Thirty-nine-year-old Alex Freyre and 41-year-old Jose Maria Di Bello were married in the southern Argentine city of Ushuaia after they were granted approval by the provincial governor.
    The two men were granted a marriage license by a municipal judge in Buenos Aires in November.
    That ruling allowed for the couple to wed in Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, even though the country has a national policy of defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
    Both men are HIV positive and they had hoped to marry on World AIDS Day.
    But a federal judge overturned the wedding decision and ordered it to be suspended.
    The couple then traveled to Argentina's southern-most province, Tierra del Fuego, often referred to as "the end of the world", where they were given residency by the governor, who upheld the initial ruling allowing them to marry.
    Argentina became the first Latin American country to allow civil unions by same-sex couples in 2002.
    Civil unions in Buenos Aires and other Argentine cities grant same-sex couples some legal marital rights, but not others such as the right to adopt. Elsewhere in Latin America, same-sex civil unions are allowed in Uruguay and Mexico City.
    Last week, Mexico City legislators approved a bill legalizing same-sex marriage.
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