A couple identified as Diego and Juan will become the first same-sex couple to marry in Colombia under a ruling handed down this week by Bogotá Judge Carmen Lucía Rodríguez Díaz. The judge decreed that the wedding will take place on July 24, according to a report from Caracol Radio.
Same-sex couples made a new push for marriage rights after June 20, 2013. That was the deadline set by a 2011 ruling from the Constitutional Court for the country's congress to pass legislation granting same-sex couples equal rights.
Proposed marriage legislation died this spring in the Senate, which meant that notaries and judges were empowered by the court's 2011 order to start solemnizing same-sex unions after the deadline passed. But ambiguity in the ruling sparked a new fight over whether these couples were entitled to "matrimony" or an entirely new kind of relationship reserved only for same-sex couples.
The ruling by Judge Carmen Lucía Rodríguez Díaz is the first lower-court victory for same-sex couples seeking marriage equality. More litigation is already pending, and advocates expect the question will come before the Constitutional Court once again before it is finally resolved.