CANBERRA, Australia (AP) A state lawmaker and his partner plan to fly 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) across Australia to become one of the nation's first same-sex couples to legally marry at an after-midnight ceremony in the Australian capital.
Stephen Dawson, a 38-year-old member of the opposition Labor Party in the Western Australian Parliament, and partner Dennis Liddelow, 39, are among at least two gay couples planning ceremonies in Canberra at 12:01 a.m. Saturday the earliest opportunity under the provincial government's landmark gay marriage laws.
But Australia's first gay marriages could be short lived, with the High Court to rule Thursday on a federal government challenge to the validity of the Australian Capital Territory law.
Federal law states that marriage can be only between a man and a woman. The government argued in Australia's highest court that the ACT law contradicted that.
Bills to change federal law to allow gay marriage were twice rejected by the Parliament last year, and Prime Minister Tony Abbott was elected in September on a platform of opposing marriage equality.