Lawyer couple use own wedding to advocate for civil marriage in Lebanon
A high-profile civil marriage between two lawyers is pushing Lebanon's new interior minister to make a choice on civil unions in the country.
Abdallah Salam and Marie Joe Abi Nassif met at Columbia Law School in New York five years ago. Today, they are both lawyers in New York.
Both come from Lebanon’s upper-middle class — his is a family of diplomats and politicians and she is the daughter of an army general. So when they decided to get married in Beirut on June 15, 2019, their wedding was a high-profile event, with friends and family gathered at Sursock Palace in the posh district of Achrafieh in the Lebanese capital.
In an act of rebellion, the young couple chose to exchange civil vows, with Joseph Beshara, the head of the Order of Lebanese Notary Publics, officiating their union — unorthodox in a country where weddings are the monopoly of religious institutions.
“Our marriage is a message,” Salam, 33, told Al-Monitor.
