Costa Rica has legalised same-sex marriage at midnight tonight. Costa Rica is the first country in Central America, the eighth country in America and the 29th country in the world to allow same-sex marriage.

At midnight, shortly after the law came into force, Dunia Araya and Alexandra Quiros became the first same-sex couple in Costa Rica to marry. The two young women, dressed in white, said “I do” in front of a registrar in the city of San Isidro de Heredia, 14 km northwest of the capital San José, both of them wearing a mouth and nose cover . You can see the video here.

Official ceremonies had to be cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic, but a special program on LGBTIQ* rights was broadcast on public television and online after the court ruling took effect at midnight.

“This change will bring about a significant social and cultural transformation that will allow thousands of people to get married,” President Carlos Alvarado said on the program accompanying the celebrations.

The introduction of same-sex marriage is the result of a Supreme Court ruling. In August 2018, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court ruled that a ban on homosexual marriage was unconstitutional and gave Parliament 18 months to change the laws. Since this was not done, the provision was automatically repealed.

Costa Rica has a strong Catholic tradition and in recent decades there has also been an increase in evangelical churches. Many followers of these denominations vehemently oppose gay marriage and made several attempts to curb the change in the law, but failed to muster the support needed by the parliament to ask the Supreme Court to postpone the measure.

With a small side blow to religious fanatics, Carlos Alvarado, who was able to prevail in April 2018 against the Protestant preacher Fabricio Alvarado as president, recently declared in an interview with AFP that the moment was right for the population to accept themselves regardless of mutual differences:

“Involving people from the LGBTI community is as important as confirming that we have different religious beliefs, practice them freely and all can coexist without hurting each other”.

Please follow and like us: