Gay nuptials will begin just after
midnight Friday in Britain as a gay marriage law approved by
lawmakers last year takes effect.
Multiple venues across Britain and
Wales are jockeying to hold the first ceremonies.
At London's Camden Town Hall, Sean
Adl-Tabatabai, 32, and Sinclair Treadway, 20, will be married in
front of 100 guests. A late-night reception will feature drinking
and dancing.
“Some people say, 'You gays are
trying to redefine marriage,' but the definition of marriage has
already changed,” Treadway, a student originally from Los Angeles,
told the AP. “Now it's between two people who love each other.”
CNN profiled another couple preparing
to make history.
Andrew Wale and Neil Allard will be the
first gay couple to marry in Brighton. The couple will exchange vows
in the music room of the Royal Pavilion.
Together 7 years, the couple won an
essay contest to be the city's first gay couple to marry.
“When we were born it was illegal to
be gay, let alone get married,” Wale
told CNN.
BBC reported that the Brighton Gay
Men's chorus will sing at the wedding of James Preston and Phil
Robathan, the first gay couple to marry at Brighton Town Hall.
Polls show about two-thirds of Britons
support allowing gay couples to marry.
Prime Minister David Cameron backed the
marriage law, roughly three decades after Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher's government approved legislation banning schools and local
authorities from “promoting homosexuality.” Both have led
Britain's majority Conservative Party.