LUXEMBOURG – Perdana Menteri Luxembourg
Jumat (15/5) menjadi pemimpin negara Uni
Eropa yang menikah dengan sesama jenis.
Xavier Bettel, 42, dan pasangannya, Gauthier
Destenay menjadi salah satu pasangan gay
pertama yang menggunakan haknya untuk menikah
sejak negara kecil ini mengesahkan undang-undang
pernikahan sesama jenis pada bulan Januari lalu.
Xavier Bettel adalah seorang pengacara yang
menjadi walikota Luxembourg dari tahun 2011
hingga 2013. Bettel menjadi perdana menteri
negara berpenduduk setengah juta jiwa sejak 4
Desember 2013, menggantikan Jean-Claude Juncker
yang telah menjadi perdana menteri selama 19
tahun.
Bettel telah berpacaran resmi dengan Destenay,
seorang arsitek, sejak tahun 2010. Acara
pernikahan mereka hanya dihadiri oleh orang-orang
terdekat kedua pasangan tersebut. Bettel menolak
permintaan media untuk meliput acara pernikahan
karena tidak ingin kehidupan pribadinya
menjadi sorotan publik.(daus)

Luxembourg’s prime minister is to become the first
European Union leader – and only the second
worldwide leader – to marry someone of the same
sex.
Xavier Bettel, 42, and his partner, Gauthier
Destenay, an architect from Belgium, are among
the first gay men to wed in the mostly Catholic
Grand Duchy since it became the latest EU state to
extend full rights to same-sex couples.
Their union comes five years after Jóhanna
Sigurðardóttir, the then prime minister of Iceland,
became the first serving leader in the world to
marry a same-sex partner.
Bettel and Destenay, who have been civil partners
since 2010, were expected to say their vows in a
quiet civil ceremony with friends and family, away
from the glare of publicity.
“It won’t be a flashy ceremony but the symbolism’s
very strong,” said French broadcaster Stéphane
Bern, a friend of Bettel and Destenay. “Everyone’s
warm and positive,” Bern was quoted as saying by
the Luxemburger Wort newspaper.
Few details have emerged about the wedding,
which Bettel had aimed to keep private. Press
photographers have been banned.
“He does not want to put his private life in the
public spotlight and he has turned down requests
from the celebrity magazines to cover the event,” a
friend told Agence France-Presse earlier this month.
Bettel, who is leader of Luxembourg’s centre-right
Democratic party, came out publicly as gay in 2008.
But since taking power 18 months ago he has
played down the significance of his sexuality,
insisting “what happens at home remains private”.
His party won its leading place in a coalition
government after promising to be a modernising
force for Luxembourg, with plans to replace
religious education in schools with general ethics
classes, and to lower the voting age to 16.
Same-sex marriage was another key pledge. It was
previously knocked down in 2007 by the then ruling
Christian People’s party, but a poll in 2013 found
83% of Luxembourgers supported a change in the
law.
Little is known about Destenay, who works for the
Belgian-Luxembourger architecture firm A3. He has
appeared alongside Bettel at a number of official
events, including the royal wedding of Prince
Guillaume and Princess Stéphanie in 2012.
What is known is that it was Destenay who
proposed, reportedly asking for Bettel’s hand just
weeks after Luxembourg’s parliament last July
became the ninth EU legislature to lift a ban on gay
marriages.
“I said ‘yes’,” Bettel told the Los Angeles Times. “I
have just one life and I don’t want to hide my life.”
Luxembourg's prime minister first EU leader
to marry same-sex partner

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