Video: BBC Newsbeat On Domestic Partnerships
The BBC Newsbeat programme has produced an online video about Bermuda’s Domestic Partnership Act, with the video featuring Winston and Greg Godwin-DeRoche, the couple who filed the legal challenge which paved the way for same sex marriage in Bermuda earlier this year.
The Domestic Partnerships Act passed in the House of Assembly and then passed in the Senate on December 13th, and the Bill then went to the UK-appointed Governor for assent. This is normal procedure and generally seen as a formality, however it has been a topic of speculation in this case, and as of this time, we are still waiting on official word on assent.
I still don’t see how this legislation benefits anyone only removes benefits from the few. Please explain. What benefit to whom?
The benefit is to hetero couples who can (why’d they want to, I don’t know) choose a domestic partnership instead of a marriage.
As far as gay couples go, they can get a domestic partnership agreement but it doesn’t do squat for them overseas.
I do not agree with removing SSM, however having the option for a domestic partnership does give legal benefits to those who are committed to one another but choose not to be legally married. For example, adding your partner to your health care benefit. Currently you can only do that if you are legally married.
Currently gay couples CAN BE legally married and enjoy all the benefits of marriage. I fail to see how some second-class union short of marriage provides any benefit to a gay couple.
Even though same sex marriage is legal through the courts there were not protections for people in same sex marriages. I.e they would have not have been entitled to be a beneficiary on their partners pensions etc. This new bill will help ensure same sex partners are entitled to benefits associated with marriage.
I still think it’s a bit wrong for Winston to have gone through the court case and cause all these issues when he was already married to his partner. Just appears that he was meaning to cause issues.
* I still think it’s a bit wrong for Winston to have gone through the court case and cause all these issues when he was already married to his partner. *
Err , how were they already married ? Didn’t they get permission to wed her in Bda and THEN chose to do it in Canada afterwards ?
Utter complete nonsense. If they’re married, they would be entitled to all rights and responsibilities of married people.
It’s the new law that restricts rights and takes away protections.
Sorry Jim Bob, Justice Simmons made same sex MARRIAGE legal, with ALL the benefits of marriage. You appear to have been listening to lies and propaganda from the hateful minority
First. ALL of the legal benefits of marriage were available to same-sex couples. They were married under the same Marriage Act as different-sex couples. There was NO legal difference.
Second. Winston WAS NOT married prior to bringing the case. And he and is partner DID NOT cause these issues.
Thank you PLP.
For what? For bigotry and hatred towards others??
Thank you plp….for openly discriminating against a segment of the population while playing the victim of oppression.
Thank you plp, for revealing how angry and hateful you are towards some Bermudians.
Thank you plp for revealing your bigotry and hypocrisy for the rest of the world to see.
so they won’t see what has become Bermuda’s shame.
Our politicians should be so proud of themselves, history will portray them as exactly what they are….
Progressive…errr….not so ,much thank you!
How very unfortunate that we end 2017 a signature away from legislation that takes away marriage rights for same sex couples.
What our courts granted our politicians simply took away. When the courts went high our politicians went low.
What kind of Community Vital Sign does this signal to significant investors and philanthropists about our Bermuda and our treatment of Human Rights, Diversity and Inclusion?
How do we begin to measure the impact on our Bermuda brand – what core value have our politicians adopted in 2017 the supports regressive diversity and inclusion legislation?
Just waiting for heterosexual couples to open the floodgates to status. PLP will plead a loophole but they created it.
What are you talking about? What flood gates? All of the same immigration benefits and restrictions available to Domestic Partnerships were always available to different-sex couples through marriage. Why would there suddenly be a flood?
I find it strange how the plp and its followers model themselves after US republicans.
Do they not see the hypocrisy in this?
Hope the governor doesn’t give Royal assent and in his favor he can’t be questioned whether or not his decision was Royal or not. Governor priviledge.
Unfortunately the current government has not learned that minority rights need protection not “compromise”. They can play with semantics and say “it’s not a right” however before the term “rights” was coined by the HRC “I” as well as anybody else could do the same thing as anybody else. Is that not true? I wonder if our current government would have accepted a compromise when the “Theaters” were boycotted. It wasn’t very long ago, maybe a compromise would have looked like blacks could sit upstairs but only in the back two rows. Unfortunately the similarity is lost on the PLP. I guess pandering to their political base has made them blind.
Maybe the governor can save BDA from the embarassment of being the first country in the world to reverse SSM marriage. How wonderfully profound such a statement would make about BDA. Welcome to pink sand and friendly people except we don’t like SSM marriages. We are a little better then you all.
Embarrassment is 2 men in bed together. YUCK
Ah, the ‘yuck factor’. Because that’s exactly the sound argument needed when it comes to matters like marriage equality.
“Embarrassment is 2 men in bed together. YUCK”
Embarrassing is your juvenile thoughts.
I as a Briton will say this: Well done Bermuda. Well done for standing up against those rainbow flag who want to impose something that infringes the rights of the majority of people.