MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina’s first gay couple marriage scheduled for December, AIDS Day

The impediment of same-sex marriages “is a judicial barrier for health care” said the happy couple

An Argentine gay couple that was enabled by a Buenos Aires City court ruling to get married after declaring the articles of the Civic Code that prohibit it as unconstitutional, requested on Monday a wedding date, according to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transvestite Federation (LGBT).

Alex Freyre, 39, went with his partner, José María Bello, 41, to the Civil Registry located in Palermo neighbourhood of the Argentine capital Buenos Aires, to schedule a date for their wedding.

The couple asked to be married on “December 1st, International AIDS Day, because we both have HIV and the two of us have been working for many years to eradicate the discrimination” that this involves, said Freyre, and he announced that the wedding will be celebrated with “a big party.”

“When the law is approved, which for us it already has been, people with HIV will have access to their partner's social security and better medical attention,” he explained.

The impediment of same-sex marriages “is a judicial barrier for health care,” said Freyre, who will celebrate his fifth anniversary in March with Di Bello.

Last week Judge Gabriela Seijas declared articles 172 and 188 of the Argentine Civic Code unconstitutional and ordered the marriage to be celebrated.

Buenos Aires City Mayor Mauricio Macri announced later on he would not appeal the decision, which means the ruling “remains firm” and the couple will be the first of the same sex to “marry in Argentina and in Latinamerica,” highlighted LGBT.

“Although the Code has not been modified -there are bills in Congress for this-, the ruling orders the celebration of the marriage and at the Civil Registry they have already told us they would be given a date,” said María Rachi, of LGBT.