MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Two men make history as first gay marriage in the city of Buenos Aires

Damian Ariel and Jorge Esteban, the happy couple (Photo: TELAM)

After a long judicial battle two men married on Wednesday in Buenos Aires City in what was Argentina's second gay marriage, a rights group confirmed.

Damian Bernath and Jorge Salazar “married on Wednesday at a Civil Registry office, and decided to do it completely privately, and they are very happy” said Maria Rachid, who leads the Argentine Federation of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transgendered (FALGBT).

Following a series of bumps in the road, Damián Ariel and Jorge Esteban were authorized last week by Judge Elena Liberatori to get married, finally making history.

Last Friday Judge María del Carmen Gioco had appealed Liberatori's ruling by stating that her decision had to be revoked by the Contentious Administrative Court after she considered it had not made part of the process.

“Attorneys are obligated to follow due process in every case, and to make everyone comply with the law. In this case, the judge denied our unconstitutionality request, and for that reason, the attorney's capability is limited. Hence, the judge understood it was not necessary to communicate her decision to Court” said Florencia Kravetz, the couple's lawyer.

In December, two Argentine men, Alex Freyre and Jose Maria Bello, became the first homosexuals to legally marry in all of heavily Roman Catholic Latin America, after the governor of southernmost Tierra del Fuego province allowed them to wed in the provincial capital, Ushuaia.

Until now, no Latin American country has formally recognized gay marriages, although Mexico City's legislature has approved them. In Argentina, local authorities have approved the legal proceedings in these two cases ahead of possible legislative action.

In late February the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, released a statement reaffirming his opposition to a judge's decision to allow same-sex marriage. The ruling, the cardinal pointed out, contradicts Argentine law which defines marriage as a civil entity between one man and one woman.

In his statement, Cardinal Bergoglio said that such a marriage is not only against Argentina’s legal system but that the executive branch of the city government in Buenos Aires is the guarantor of legality there, and therefore the mayor of Buenos Aires has the duty to appeal the ruling

The mayor of Buenos Aires, Mauricio Macri, indicated that he would not appeal the judge’s decision.