Same-sex marriage has been legal for four years – and 13,000 couples have wed
thinkSPAIN , Sunday, June 28, 2009
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 FOUR years on from same-sex marriage being made legal in Spain, over 13,000 couples have celebrated their weddings, says the Ministry of Justice.
Of the total of 13,116 newlyweds since June 2005, only one in ten have ended in divorce or separation.
But in the first nine months of last year, 96,500 married heterosexual couples split up, making a total of 357 divorces or separations a day.
Two-thirds of gay weddings have involved men, with a total of 4,218 marriages between all-female couples.
The change in the law on June 30, 2005 made Spain the fourth country in the world to allow same-sex marriage after Holland, Belgium and Canada.
The first-ever gay wedding in Spain was between Spaniard Emilio Menéndez and North American Carlos Baturín on July 3 – just a week after the law was passed.
Catalunya holds the record for the highest number of same-sex unions, with 3,275 having been celebrated in the past four years, followed by Madrid with 2,629.
Andalucía and the Comunidad Valenciana follow with 1,912 and 1,673 respectively.
Together with the Canary Islands, the Basque Country and the Balearics, these regions account for 85 per cent of weddings between couples of the same gender.
Gay societies believe this is because of tourism, and a more open attitude in populated parts of the country.
President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, on approving the new law, said it was based on ‘two unstoppable forces, those of freedom and equality’.
The socialist government stressed that rather than ‘destroying the traditional family’ as the extreme right-wing insisted, the legislation ‘allowed existing families to be legally recognised’.
Since Spain approved gay marriage, South Africa, Norway and Sweden have followed suit along with the USA states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and Maine.
It is believed that Argentina may become the eighth country to allow such unions.
Today is International Gay Pride Day with processions, concerts and events taking place in major cities all over the world.
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