UK steps aside as Bermuda repeals same-sex marriage bill

THE British Government said it was “disappointed” with Bermuda yesterday after it revoked same-sex marriage rights for its citizens, but said it was not appropriate to block the move.

The Government came under pressure from MPS yesterday to explain why it had given its assent to the legislation, which reverses a Supreme Court ruling last year giving same-sex couples the right to marry.

The legislation was signed into law on Wednesday by the island’s governor, the British diplomat John Rankin.

It replaces the right of the island’s 60,000 citizens to enter same-sex marriages with a “domestic partnership”, which is available to couples of any sexual orientation. Mr Rankin said he had made the decision “after careful consideration in line with my responsibilities under the Constitution”, but declined to comment further.

After the announcement, MPS from across the Commons floor demanded to know why Boris Johnson, the For- eign Secretary, had approved the move.

Harriett Baldwin, a Foreign Office minister, told MPS that the Government was “obviously disappointed” with the decision but that British overseas territories were “separate, selfgoverning jurisdictions with their own democratically elected representatives that have the right to self-government”.

She said: “The Secretary of State decided that in these circumstances it would not be appropriate to use this power to block legislation, which can only be used where there is a legal or constitutional basis for doing so, and even only in exceptional circumstances.”

Ms Baldwin added that the new civil partnership law met European human rights standards.

Labour’s Chris Bryant said Cunard and P&O’S Bermuda-registered ships would no longer be able to hold samesex marriages at sea. Mr Bryant, who asked an urgent question on the issue in the Commons, said it was a “backwards step for human rights in Bermuda and in the overseas territories”.

Walton Brown, Bermuda’s minister of home affairs, whose ruling PLP party proposed the act, said he was pleased with the decision. “The British Government recognises that this is a local government decision,” he said, adding that the act struck a compromise by “restating that marriage must be between a male and a female while at the same time recognising and protecting the rights of same-sex couples.”

Bermudans were first granted the right to same-sex marriages after a Supreme Court ruling in May 2017 but many on the socially conservative island were outraged. While that has now been revoked, same-sex couples who wed recently will not have their marital status annulled.

International human rights groups claim the new Domestic Partnership Act 2017 contradicts Bermuda’s constitution, which guarantees freedom from discrimination.

“I feel enormously disappointed,” said Joe Gibbons, a 64-year-old married gay Bermudian. “This is not equality, and the British Government has obviously just said: ‘This is not our fight.’”

‘This is not equality, and the British Government has clearly said, this is not our fight’