Tourism in Bermuda is the biggest industry and export. Bermuda, the small island nation under British rule located in the Atlantic Ocean, is trying to become the first country to re-ban same-sex marriage after its House of Assembly passed a bill on Saturday to overrule an earlier court ruling which had permitted the practice.
The new law, titled the Domestic Partnerships Act, would allow both heterosexual and homosexual couples to file for household status to obtain the same rights. It would replace a May ruling by the country’s Supreme Court, which granted marriage rights to same-sex couples but did not give them the full legal rights that opposite-sex couples have.
Since the court ruling, Bermudian politics has been deeply divided over the issue. Minister of Home Affairs Walton Brown argued in a speech that the bill was a compromise between people who wanted no legal recognition for same-sex couples and those who wanted full marriage equality.
The bill did not pass unanimously, however. House member Trevor Moniz was one of several who opposed it. “To take that right away from them is something that is abhorrent to me,” he said, according to the local Royal Gazette newspaper.