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Bermuda Revokes Same-Sex Marriage Rights

by VOA News

   Less than a year after legalizing same-sex marriage, Bermuda has
   implemented a new law making it legal for same-sex couples to enter
   into domestic partnerships but not marry.

   The British territory's government is believed to be the first in the
   world to reverse course on same-sex marriage.

   Same-sex couples who wed in recent months will not have their marital
   status annulled.

   LBGT civil rights groups said that domestic partnerships amount to a
   second-class status and that it is unprecedented for a jurisdiction to
   take away the legal right to marriage after it has been granted.

   "Governor [John] 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 the Human Rights Campaign Global.

   Britain could have blocked the bill from being enacted but decided not
   to.

   British Prime Minister Theresa May said she was "seriously
   disappointed" but decided not to act because the "bill has been
   democratically passed by the Parliament of Bermuda," BBC reported.

   The Atlantic island legalized same-sex marriage in May 2017 after a
   Supreme Court ruling.