Malaysia's first openly gay pastor to marry

Malaysia's first openly gay pastor has chosen today to get married to his American partner in New York, barely a month after same-sex marriage became legalized there. Today also marks Malaysia's Independence Day.

"It means a lot to be married [today], to honor my country and people in Malaysia," said Rev. Boon Lin Ngeo (right), who also goes by his pen name O.Young or Ouyang Wen Feng, in a telephone call from Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Malaysia's Sabah state, during a visit there last week.

He said the date was chosen to remind others that "we need to keep fighting for our rights and be independent from all kinds of oppression."

The two plan to make it legal at New York's City Hall at noon with the actual wedding ceremony on another date. A Chinese-Malaysian, Ngeo also plans a Chinese wedding banquet in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur next year for family and friends.

In Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim nation, sodomy and "carnal intercourse against the order of nature,"-- under which homosexuality falls -- are prosecutable under Penal Code 377. Offenders face imprisonment of up to 20 years and a whipping. Islamic Sharia laws in Malaysia also criminalize homosexuality.

The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia declined a request by CNN to comment on gay marriage, with the public affairs spokeswoman calling it "a very sensitive issue and not a common lifestyle."

The marriage is the second for both Ngeo, 41, and his fiancé, Phineas Newborn III, 47, a Broadway producer and performer as well as progeny of two generations of jazz musicians whose name he bears. Newborn has a daughter from his previous marriage; both men's prior marriages were with women and ended in divorce.

"A lot of gay people, because of prejudice and discrimination, hide themselves in a heterosexual marriage because of social pressures, family pressures," Ngeo said. "So they lead a double life. That's no good to anyone. There are a lot of straight people who have been hurt by this discrimination."

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