Bermuda becomes first country in world to repeal same-sex marriage

BERMUDA - Bermuda has become the first country to legalize and then repeal samesex marriage, in what critics have called an unprecedented rollback of civil rights by the British island territory. Bermuda’s governor has signed into law a bill reversing the right of gay couples to marry, despite a supreme court ruling last year authorizing samesex marriage. Walton Brown, the minister of home affairs, said the legislation signed by Governor John Rankin would balance opposition to samesex marriage on the socially conservative island while complying with European court rulings that ensure recognition and protection for same-sex couples in the territory. Bermuda’s Senate and House of Assembly passed the legislation by wide margins in December and a majority of voters opposed samesex marriage in a referendum. “The act is intended to strike a fair balance between two currently irreconcilable groups in Bermuda, by restating that marriage must be between a male and a female while at the same time recognizing and protecting the rights of samesex couples,” said Brown, whose ruling PLP party proposed the repeal.

LGBT civil rights groups said domestic partnerships amounted to a second-class status and it was unprecedented for a jurisdiction to take away the legal right to marriage after it had been granted. “Governor Rankin and the Bermuda parliament have shamefully made Bermuda the first national territory in the world to repeal marriage equality,” said Ty Cobb, director of Human Rights Campaign Global. “I feel enormously disappointed,” said 64-year-old married gay Bermudian Joe Gibbons. “This is not equality, and the British government has obviously just said, ‘This is not our fight.’” About half a dozen same-sex marriages that took place in Bermuda between the supreme court ruling in May 2017 and the repeal will continue to be recognized under the new law. (The Guardian)