First 'gay weddings' for Scots

The Civil Partnership Act, which came into effect earlier this month, gives gay and lesbian couples the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.

Couples will benefit from a major change in next of kin status and inheritance tax and pension rights.

But registrars in the Western Isles Council area are refusing to offer ceremonies on moral grounds.

Four of the ceremonies were being held in Edinburgh and one each in Aberdeen, Dumfries and Galloway and Glasgow.

The first couple involved in Edinburgh were John Maguire and partner Laurence Scott-Mackay, who went on to be blessed by Bishop Richard Holloway.

Mr Maguire and Mr Scott-Mackay have been together almost 14 years after meeting in a bar in Edinburgh in January 1992.

They are both originally from Scotland - Mr Maguire, from Bathgate, West Lothian, while Mr Scott-Mackay is from Dornoch in Sutherland - but currently live in Washington DC in America, where they work for an IT firm.

Male homosexuality was still a crime in Scotland, when they were born in the early 1970s and was not decriminalised until 1981.

'Absolutely incredible'

Mr Maguire said of his big day: "It's absolutely incredible. For the first time in our relationship and for the first time in the history of the lesbian and gay movement, our government and our country is saying 'you're valid, your relationship is worth something.

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