BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — After a 27-year courtship, two men on Friday became the first gay couple to wed under Argentina’s historic same-sex marriage law — the first of its kind for a Latin American nation.
Jose Luis Navarro, 54, and Miguel Angel Calefato, 65, tied the knot in provincial Santiago del Estero in an early-morning ceremony where a civil-registry official used a pen to cross out “man and woman” on the marriage license and wrote in “contracting parties.”
“Respect has prevailed over prejudice,” Navarro, an architect, told the newspaper El Liberal.
He said he met his new husband, now a retired office worker, while vacationing at a beach resort nearly three decades ago, and “there was chemistry from the first moment.”
Argentina became the first country in Latin America to permit same-sex marriage when President Cristina Fernandez signed the law July 21. The legislation was passed by both houses of Congress despite fierce opposition from the Roman Catholic Church.
The law declares that wedded gay and lesbian couples have all the same legal rights and responsibilities as heterosexual marriages, including the right to inheritance and to jointly adopt children.
Navarro and Calefato’s wedding was the first of many expected in coming weeks. Hours later, agent Alejandro Vanelli and actor Ernesto Larrese said “I do” in the capital, Buenos Aires, after 34 years as partners.
“What comes now is more love, more freedom, and that can’t be anything but positive,” Larrese said.
At least three more same-sex marriages are scheduled for the weekend.
