Women tie the knot in Austria’s first same-sex marriage

BERLIN – Two women have tied the knot in Austria’s first same-sex marriage, months after the country’s constitutional Court ruled to legalize it.

Vienna’s city government said the wedding took place Friday at a registry office in the capital. Austrian media reported that the women who married at a private ceremony were one of the couples whose case prompted the court ruling in December.

Same-sex couples in Austria, a predominantly Roman Catholic nation of some 8.7 million, have been allowed to enter civil partnerships since 2010. All will be able to marry starting Jan. 1. The five couples involved in the court case were allowed to marry earlier.

On Thursday, the parties in Austria’s centre-right governing coalition announced they were giving up their resistance to same-sex marriage and accepting the court ruling.