First gay marriage in Spain takes place

Monday, July 11, 2005

Emilio Menendez, a Spaniard, and Carlos Baturin German, an American, became the first gay couple to be married under a new law allowing same-sex marriage in Spain. The couple tied the knot in the town of Tres Cantos, outside of Madrid. Wedding guests included family and friends, as well as journalists and politician Pedro Zerolo, the governing Socialist Party's top official for social issues.

Spain is only the third nation in Europe to legalise same-sex marriage, after the Netherlands and Belgium. The bill was passed by the lower house of Parliament on 30 June 2005, overruling a rejection by the upper house, the Senate. Although the move was opposed by Roman Catholic groups, polls suggest that a majority of Spaniards support the decision. There were protests in Madrid prior to the bill being passed, and a Roman Catholic group submitted a 600,000-signature petition urging a referendum.

State run television broadcast images of the happy couple after the ceremony. Menendez told reporters, "The happiest day of our lives was when we fell in love with each other. We have been together for 30 years, there have been many wonderful days, today is yet another wonderful day."

Sources

"First gay marriage held in Spain" — BBC News, July 11, 2005

Share this:

The text of this article has been released into the public domain. In the event that this is not legally possible, this article may be used for any purpose, without any condition, unless such conditions are required by law. This applies worldwide. Copyright terms on images, however, may vary, so please check individual image pages prior to duplication.
Please note that this only applies to Wikinews content created prior to September 25, 2005. All content created after that date is released under a Creative Commons license which is mentioned at the bottom of each article. This is currently the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.