Bucharest: The Constitutional Court of Romania. where gay marriage is banned, will on Wednesday consider whether to recognise the same-sex union of a US-Romanian couple who were wedded in Belgium.
Romanian national Adrian Coman and his American partner, Clai Hamilton, tied the knot in Brussels in 2010.
They have since been fighting to have their legal status as spouses officially recognised in Romania, where their is strong anti-gay sentiment.
The two men, both aged 44, "are confronted with an absurd legal reality: when they're abroad, they are married, but as soon as they cross the Romanian border their marriage is no longer valid," Romanita Iordache of the LGBT rights group Accept said on Tuesday.
The current legislation is unconstitutional because it deprives "some people of legal protection because of their sexual orientation", according to the couple's lawyer, Iustina Ionescu.
judges on Wednesday are also set to examine an anti-gay petition seeking a national referendum on changing the current marriage definition as a union between "partners" to one explicitly between "a man and a woman".
In May, several conservative groups linked to the powerful Orthodox Church submitted three million signatures to parliament in favour of amending the wording.
Homosexuality in Romania was illegal until 2000, when the country decriminalised it after harsh criticism from the European Union and the Council of Europe.
