Gay Americans Marry In Belgium
by Rex Wockner, 365Gay.com Editor-At-Large.
Originally published: 11 October 2004.
Two American men who work in Belgium have become the first U.S. same-sex couple to be married in that country.
The wedding took pace Oct. 9, in the city of Enghien.
Phillip Sorensen, 46, and Christopher Staker, 49, both of whom work for NATO in Brussels, tied the knot in the City Hall civil-weddings room before local friends and 37 other friends and family members from around the world, including 25 who came from the U.S. for the event.
An Oct. 1 law change made it possible for any foreign same-sex couple to marry in Belgium if at least one of the spouses has lived there for at least three months. Previously, foreign same-sex couples could marry in Belgium only if their home country or countries also allowed same-sex marriage.
Sorensen and Staker are from New Hampshire. The only U.S. state that allows same-sex couples to marry is Massachusetts.
Staker is NATO's director of health promotion and preventive medicine. Sorensen is NATO's director of occupational health and epidemiology.
Belgium granted same-sex couples access to marriage in 2002, following in the footsteps of the Netherlands. Since then, same-sex couples also have won access to marriage, via court rulings, in Massachusetts; in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec; and in Canada's Yukon Territory. There are no residency requirements for marriage in Canada.
This story provided by our International News Partners 365gay.com.
