Argentine Judge Halts Gay Marriage

With just hours to go before Alex Freyre and Jose Maria Di Bello were to become the first same-sex couple in Latin America to tie the knot, a judge in Argentina has put a stop to the ceremony.

Judge Marta Gomez Alsina, in the capital city, Buenos Aires, ruled Monday that the planned wedding will be suspended. The court website reads that she ordered the wedding blocked until the case could be reviewed by the supreme court.

Freyre and Di Bello were profiled in the Sunday edition of the U.K. newspaper The Guardian. The couple, who met three years ago at an HIV conference, were granted a marriage license November 16 and planned to be married tomorrow.

"This marriage is bigger than Jose Maria and I," Freyre told the paper. "It is a victory for all who face prejudice and discrimination across Latin America and the Caribbean. It is proof that at last the grip of the Catholic church is slipping across Latin America, the system that has kept gay communities silent and fearful is crumbling. What is happening on Tuesday is a strike against those attitudes that have repressed sexual rights across this continent for too long."