Argentine president becomes godmother to lesbians’ child

ARGENTINE President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has become the godmother to the baby of a lesbian couple following a rare baptism in the country for a child raised by same-sex parents.

Carina Villaroel and Soledad Ortiz looked on as their daughter, two-month-old Uma Azul (all pictured above), was baptised by Father Carols Varas on Sunday.

The ceremony took place in the cathedral of Córdoba, Argentina’s second-largest city.

“Father Varas told us he had been waiting for a couple like us, a gay one, and we happened to come and he accepted us,” Villaroel told Reuters.

“There’s really been a social change for Catholicism to have said yes to baptising a child from a lesbian family.”

The couple asked President Fernandez de Kirchner to be Uma’s godparent following her government’s legalisation of same-sex marriage.

“It’s a way of thanking her and former president Nestor Kirchner for this law that gave us rights,” Villaroel said.

Argentina became the first country in Latin America to legalise same-sex marriage in 2010 despite the fact Pope Francis, at the time archbishop of Buenos Aires, came out strongly against the law.

Homosexuality has been legal in Argentina since approximately 1887.

By Argentine tradition couples can ask the president to be the godparent of their seventh child.

A spokesperson for the president confirmed that Fernandez de Kirchner agreed to make an exception for the couple’s first child.

Fernandez de Kirchner did not attend the baptism in person, sending Naval officer Claudia Fenochio in her place.

(Main image credit: Diego Lima/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)