Belfast, Northern Ireland ? Two lesbians became the first gay couple in the United Kingdom to win legal recognition under a civil partnership Monday, a ceremony that attracted scorn from evangelical Christian protesters but praise from gay rights activists.

Grainne Close, a social worker from Northern Ireland, and Shannon Sickels, a playwright from New York, were the first of several hundred gay couples exchanging vows nationwide this week – including Elton John and his longtime partner, David Furnish.

“We are delighted. Here’s to many more,” Sickels said after she and Close became the first public celebrants of a legally binding gay partnership at Belfast City Hall.

Northern Ireland, which in 1982 was the last region in the United Kingdom to legalize homosexuality, is now the first to grant gay couples the same legal protections as married heterosexuals. Scotland was to follow today, and England and Wales on Wednesday.

The measure is already in force in many other European countries. In the United States, more than a dozen states recognize some form of domestic partnerships or civil unions, but 11 states voted in November 2004 to ban gay marriage.

In keeping with the exceptional conservatism of Northern Ireland society, Monday’s landmark festivities also drew a few dozen Protestant evangelicals who sang Gospel hymns and waved “Sodomy is sin” placards.

Grainne Close, left, and Shannon Sickels leave Belfast City Hall in Northern Ireland. Close and Sickels on Monday became the first gay couple to win legal recognition under a new British civil partnership law.

Gay rights activists countered with their own bullhorn-assisted chants of support. A few wearing Hitler-style mustaches shadowed the evangelical crowd waving satirical placards that read, “Earth is flat” and “Bring back slavery.”

Some lesbian couples who arrived as guests suffered verbal harassment from the protesters, who called them “abominations” and warned of their impending damnation.

The Rev. Ian Brown of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, a protest leader, said most people in Northern Ireland opposed what he called “sodomite propaganda” and homosexuals’ “perverse lifestyle.”

Such views are more widely held in Northern Ireland than in other parts of the United Kingdom. Here, Roman Catholics and Protestants sometimes overcome their political hostility to protest jointly on traditional family issues.