Spain still struggles to abort discrimination and racism like any other country out there. However, Spain is one of the most gay-tolerant places to live in if you look for such a community. With almost 90% of the population being in favor of gay rights, since 2005, when the country adopted gay marriages, the numbers speak for themselves. Now, Spain scored a world first on Saturday, when 2 gay police officers got married, fully dressed in their gala uniforms.
Jose Maria, aka Chema, and Jonathan, his lover and coworker, went through 5 years of relationship, before committing to the final step. Their ceremony was held at the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art. Despite the couple not wanting their marriage to be world – wide covered, a local news magazine found about the wedding and made it public.
“We don’t want pictures of us in our gala uniforms, because we don’t want to show ourselves off” Chema said in an interview. He also added that he is more than willing to speak freely about the subject if it “helps children who are being bullied at school over their sexual condition to see that this is normal. It’s not something that should be hidden just because you belong to a particular institution.
We are not the first gay people in this institution, we have many gay friends within the police force”. Jose Maria said that they even consider adopting a child, but it fears that the public view in Spain is still not prepared to deal with such a matter and he declared, in an interview for Canal Sur Radio: “Gay parents who adopt children are stigmatized more, but people don’t think about what lies behind – the parents who abandoned their children. It would seem that the gay parents who adopt a person are the bad guys, rather than the parents who abandoned that child in the first place.”
The young couple exchanged their vows on Saturday and they are now the first police couple to do so. However, in January this year, Fox 4 News presented 4 Forth Worth police officers playing in a commercial in favor of same-sex marriages. Chris Gorrie, Jay Doshi and several other coworkers stated their support for legalizing gay marriages in Texas. Also, in 2013, a Honolulu police officer had a public altercation with the police union president Tenari Maafala, who was against same-sex marriages, which means that Chema and his husband Jonathan may only be the first in the series.
Whatever may be the case, one thing is for sure: the young couple looked astonishing.
