Tuesday, November 17, 2009

First Latin America gay marriage on December 1

Latin America's first gay marriage will be held on World AIDS Day on December 1, the Argentine couple, who are both HIV positive, said Monday.

"We will become husband and husband," said Alejandro Freyre, 39, and Jose Maria Di Bello, 41, after they were given the date by the Buenos Aires registry office.

An Argentine judge on Friday paved the way for the couple to marry in a first for Latin America, the world's biggest Catholic region.

The wedding will take place in the same registry office where the couple were turned away in April because they are both men. Now they will have the same rights as a heterosexual couple.

Buenos Aires, known for its active if low-key gay movement, became the region's first city to approve civil unions for gay couples in 2002.

It was followed by Villa Carlos Paz in the north and the southern province of Rio Negro. Those civil unions grant gay couples some, but not all, the rights enjoyed by heterosexual married couples.

Uruguay became the first country in the region in late 2007 to legalize civil unions for gays. In January 2009, the Colombian Constitutional Court recognized a series of rights for homosexual couples, including social welfare rights.

Elsewhere, civil unions are recognized in Mexico City, the Mexican state of Coahuila and the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.

The Catholic church, which is especially powerful in Argentina where the population is 91 percent Catholic, has sharply criticized the move.

"Same sex unions do not contribute to the common good, but seriously endanger it," said Bishop Baldemoro Martini. (AFP)

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