Images of two grooms waiting their brides in a double wedding ceremony received tens of thousands of views in social media posts falsely claiming the couple would marry in Indonesia, where same-sex marriage is not allowed. The Ministry of Religious Affairs in Wonosobo, where the wedding took place, confirmed that the video showed two men preparing to tie the knot with sisters.
“God forgive me…gay marriage…,” read Indonesian text overlaid on a TikTok video with over 92,000 views.
A man narrating the video says it shows a gay couple exchanging vows during an “official gay wedding” in Wonosobo in the Indonesian province of Central Java on May 11.
The video was posted on May 29, shortly after Indonesia’s Ministry of Religious Affairs annulled a marriage that was initially believed to be between a man and a woman but turned out to be between two men (archived link).
The ministry said the marriage was invalid because same-sex marriage was “not allowed in Islamic culture and religion.”
Another same-sex wedding ceremony was stopped by police in Wonosobo in 2016 (archived link).
Homosexuality is not banned in Indonesia, except in the conservative province of Aceh, which adheres to strict Islamic laws.
But gay couples often face persecution and discrimination in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, where homosexuality is still taboo.
The video was shared in similar posts on SnackVideo and TikTok.
Some social media users appeared to believe the images showed a gay wedding.
“Oh my God, how could this happen?” one commented.
“Isn’t this dangerous (?),” wrote another.
Double wedding
Searching for keywords on Google turned up a YouTube video from the Wonosobo Ministry of Religious Affairs, which clarified that the footage showed a double wedding (archived link).
Ministry representatives identified as Ahmad Fuadi and Panut and the wedding officiant Ahmad Soleh said the video showed two men Zidan Yusron Wijanarko and Afan Muhajid and their brides – who are sisters – Harum Nurin Setyawening and Nahriyati Sri Febiningsih.
“The execution of the marriage contract is carried out in accordance with legal regulations… with the presence of a future groom and a future bride,” Soleh said.
“It was done twice because of the sibling situation.”
Although AFP was unable to trace the exact clip circulating online, a keyword search did find a video of the wedding highlights on the wedding organizer’s Instagram page (archived link).
The video shows the two grooms standing side by side.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in a fake TikTok post and a similar video posted by the wedding organizer.
Searching for keywords on Instagram also yielded one clamp on one of the brides’ accounts, showing the couples posing in their wedding clothes (archived link).
Indonesian law defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
