MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

First gay couple, Sergio and Rodolfo officially married in Uruguay

The couple has been living together since 1999

The first gay couple to register to marry in Uruguay when a new equal marriage law took effect on 5 August, have married as gay rights activists celebrate in the country. Sergio Miranda and Rodrigo Borda married in Montevideo last Thursday accompanied by 30 friends and family, US Ambassador Julissa Reynoso and around a hundred members of the media.

“While in Russia they incite violence and hunt us down and kill us like the Nazi regime, in Uruguay we can get married. We can celebrate love. So I’m very happy to live in a country like Uruguay and not like Russia,” Miranda was quoted.

The couple met in 1999 during the Night of Nostalgia, Uruguay’s annual celebration held on 24 August, and reports say that the couple have “never parted” since.

The couple is technically the second to marry, as the first were a gay couple in their 60s, one of whom is terminally ill, and were given a waiver allowing them to marry on 5 August when the law officially came into effect. Their wedding took place in a Montevideo hospital, and a witness described it as “very special”.

The country became the twelfth in the world to legalise same-sex marriage in May after President Jose Mujica signed the measure into law. The reform passed in Congress last April with overwhelming support.

Argentina became the first Latinamerican country to allow same sex couples to marry in 2010.