Gay leader of Catholic Luxembourg marries partner

The prime minister of Luxembourg married his partner on Friday, a year after the tiny Roman Catholic nation approved a law allowing same-sex marriage. Xavier Bettel did so five years after Iceland’s prime minister married her partner in the first same-sex wedding of a ruling government leader in Europe. Bettel at first said he wanted to have a very private wedding, but by Friday morning, he had already posted a picture of himself with Belgian partner Gauthier Destenay on his Twitter profile page.

I wish for everybody to be as happy as I am, thank you to the Luxembourg people and to everyone, I do not make any distinctions, thank you.

Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel

Bettel, a 42-year-old lawyer, heads the free-market DP liberals, who entered a coalition government with the Socialists and the Greens to end 34 years of Christian Democrat reign in Luxembourg. On July 1, this nation of 520,000 will take over the presidency of the 28-nation European Union, giving Bettel major international exposure. The prime minister has also reinvigorated the political scene with reforms. Last year, lawmakers overwhelmingly approved changes to allow people of the same sex to wed and to adopt children — part of the most fundamental revision of Luxembourg’s laws on marriage since 1804.

Luxembourg Europe