The diminutive duchy of Luxembourg's dashing, young leader is about to be taken off the marriage market, according news site Digital Journal, which cites unnamed sources for its report that Prime Minister Xavier Bettel will marry his longtime partner, Gauthier Destenay next week.
The first same-sex couple in Luxembourg to wed exchanged vows in January when a new law, passed in June 2014, went into effect and made the country the 17th with nationwide marriage equality. Finland is the 18th, while Scotland preceded Luxembourg enacting marriage equality, according to Freedom to Marry.
There was much speculation in the media that Bettel and Destenay would marry "in the not-too-distant future" at around the time of Henri Huber and Jean Paul Olinger became the first same-sex couple to marry in Luxembourg. The prime minister and his fiancé have been in a legally recognized domestic partnership since 2010.
Last August, the Los Angeles Times reported that it was Destenay, an architect who actually popped the question. "He asked me, and I said yes," the 42-year-old premier told the The Times in August. "I can't give you the date, because it's not official yet."
In that same interview, Bettel indicated that authenticity is important to him, adding that he is a prime minister for all the people. "I have just one life, and I don't want to hide my life," Bettel told Los Angeles Times reporter," Henry Chu. "But I was not the 'gay candidate.' … People didn't vote for me because I'm gay or I'm straight."
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