by Rex Wockner
International News Briefs
Same-sex couples began marrying in Argentina on July 30, nine days after President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner signed the bill legalizing same-sex marriage. It passed the Senate on July 15 by a vote of 33 to 27.
A gay couple in the northern province of Santiago del Estero – Jose Luis Navarro and Miguel Angel Calefato – were the first to marry, quickly followed by several other couples around the country.
Navarro and Calefato said they will accept the Mexico City government's all-expenses-paid honeymoon offer for the first married Argentine gay couple. Mexico City is the only other place in Latin America where same-sex marriage is legal.
Gay and lesbian couples also can marry in Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, D.C.
The New York Times reported July 27 that more than 3,000 same-sex couples have married in South Africa since it became legal in 2006. The paper said that in half of the marriages, one or both partners were foreigners.
