Germany has witnessed its first ever same-sex marriages, after new legislation came into effect yesterday.
Registry offices across the country broke with tradition by opening their doors on a Sunday in order to allow gay couples to take their vows as soon as the new legislation came into effect.
Karl Kreile, 59, and Bodo Mende, 62, were the first same-sex couple to tie the knot, almost four decades after they first met.
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In front of 60 guests and almost as many journalists, Kreile and Mende exchanged their vows in the “Golden Room” of their local town hall, in the Schoeneberg district of Berlin.
The pair, both civil servants, have been together since 1979.
Kreile and Mende are used to blazing a trail - they first tried to obtain a marriage licence in 1992 and were among the wave of first couples to register their union when Germany introduced same-sex civil partnerships in 2002.
“We had a huge party 15 years ago that can’t be topped,” Kreile told AP reporters before the ceremony. However, “the transition to the term ‘marriage’ shows that the German state recognizes us as real equals”.
He added that being the first same-sex couple to wed under equal marriage laws was an “incredible honour”.
Green party politician Anja Kofbinger tweeted a picture of the first female gay couple in Berlin to take advantage of marriage equality, whom she identified as Daniela and Gerlinde.
Another Green party politician was among those exchanging their vows yesterday. Volker Beck, a long-time activist for gay rights, tied the knot with his partner, Adrian Petkov, The New York Times reports.
Aside from the symbolic victory for equality, “getting married will give gay couples the same tax advantages and adoption rights as heterosexual couples”, says the BBC.
Chancellor Angela Merkel surprised many earlier this year when she indicated a softening of her longstanding opposition to gay marriage, saying that she would allow her MPs a free vote on the issue.
Within days, a vote was organised and the German parliament approved same-sex marriage by 393 to 226, despite the chancellor herself and most of her centre-right CDU party voting against the legislation.
Weeks later, Malta followed suit, becoming the 15th European country of 23 nations around the world to introduce equal marriage.
