Bermuda Is Going to Re-Ban Same-Sex Marriage Ashitha

Metro (U.K.) ^ | 11 Dec 2017 | Ashitha Nagesh

[nickcarraway]

While most of the world moves forward, Bermuda just took a big step back.

The country’s MPs have voted to re-ban same-sex marriage, just six months after it was legalised.

Under the proposed new bill, same-sex couples won’t be able to marry, but will instead enter into a ‘domestic partnership’. Speaking in favour of the bill, backbencher Lawrence Scott told the Bermuda Assembly: ‘As it stands now, they [LGBT couples] can have the name “marriage” but without the benefits. ‘But after this bill passes, they have the benefits and just not the name marriage. The benfits are what they really want.’

But Shadow Home Affairs Minister, Patricia Gordon-Pamplin, spoke out against the bill. ‘I don’t like to accept that it is OK for us to treat our sisters and brothers differently, whether fair or unfair, to treat them differently under similar circumstances,’ she said. Rainbow Alliance, a Bermudan LGBTQ group, also spoke out against the re-ban.

‘We are in agreement with the Human Rights Commission that the proposed legislation creates a “watered down” version of rights, leading to a separate but equal status under the law,’ they told Gay Times. ‘Ultimately, no separate but equal measure allows for equality or justice.’

Same-sex marriage was legalised in the British Overseas Territory earlier this year, after the Supreme Court delivered a landmark ruling that a ban was a human rights violation.

[Rurudyne]

Excellent!

[Rurudyne]

... now if only we could move back towards criminalizing homosexual acts...

[thesharkboy]

While most of the world moves forward, Bermuda just took a big step back.

Blatant bias in the very first sentence. Congratulations!

[fieldmarshaldj]

Nice to see some good Christian sanity prevailing in Bermuda.

[robroys woman]

They treat them differently because they are different. Marriage exists not because of sex, but because it is the best way to nurture our progeny to keep our nation strong. Sex is involved only because that is how we procreate.

Homosexual activity, no matter the position you use, will NEVER result in the conception of a child. That makes it something outside the scope of why marriage even exists.

This is not a complex issue. They just want to make it so.

[Uncle Sam 911]

A big step back, yes indeed, to morality.

[Lurkinanloomin]

Benefits is what they were after.

[LouieFisk]

If two people want to get their lives entangled, just have them give one another total power of attorney for each other. No need for a faux “marriage”.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks so much for your support to this point... I personally apprecaite it...
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...this is a general all-purpose message, and should not be seen as targeting any individual I am responding to...

[TheBattman]

Metro UK - as in one of the most Leftist of the overall extremely Leftist media in in the UK...

Thanks that Bermuda is taking a step “backwards”? That is a sure-fire indication that Bermuda is taking morally correct, forward-thinking steps.

[NRx]

“... now if only we could move back towards criminalizing homosexual acts...”

Sorry, that’s a step too far for me. I am firmly against sodomitical marriage, but I draw the line at the door to one’s home. What presumably consenting adults do with one another in private is no one else’s business, especially the state’s. And it’s a slippery slope. Where does one draw the line? Do we arrest anyone having non-procreative sex, which is considered by many as “unnatural?”

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

What was missing from the end of the sentence was: ‘...on the road to perversity’.

The first line SHOULD read: “While most of the world moves forward, Bermuda just took a big step back on the road to perversity.”

[Bubba_Leroy]

"While most of the world moves forward towards insanity, Bermuda just took a big step back."

Fixed it.

[Bubba_Leroy]

I am firmly against sodomitical marriage, but I draw the line at the door to one’s home.

I agree with you there. What any two or more consenting adults want to do in bed together is none of my concern unless I am one of them.

Recognition of marriage, on the other hand, is an action by the state to encourage and promote conduct. The government has a legitimate interest in promoting heterosexual marriage to ensure the propagation of the next generation of productive citizens. The government has no legitimate interest in promoting homosexual sodomy.

[billorites]

It's the stupid shorts.

That's gay enough, IMHO.

[AndyTheBear]

There is not a lot of explanation here. What is meant by the gay couples not having the same benefit?

Anyway the ethical principal of not treating anyone differently seems sound when one imagines it in some contexts, but is absurd when one extends it to a general principle without restriction of context:

For example, let us say some innocent person is shot, the people in the ambulance rush to them and take them to the hospital...but they don't treat people who were not shot the same way...they ignore them if they are not in the way, and they expect them to move out of the way if they are. All of this is perfectly reasonable ethical behavior...but certainly the people are being treated grossly differently.

Now one might object to my analysis and say I am applying the principle of fairness in the wrong way. Rather the principle really is that the ambulance should rush to those who were shot independent of who that person might be, being that the people themselves are of equal importance to be tended whenever there is dire need of such tending.

But then some people will not ever need an ambulance and some people will need it more than once. So the principle of having ambulances will serve some more than others. Suppose there is somebody who is invulnerable and healthy by nature. They will never get to ride in the ambulance unless the policy is changed. They are necessarily treated differently. And yet on account of this, the ambulance crew can't be said to be unfair or unreasonable. For the purpose of an ambulance is to take care of people that need emergency care.

When things have a purpose, like ambulances and marriage for that matter, then it does not become necessarily unfair to treat people differently in regard to their relationship with that purpose.

The purpose of marriage as a social and biological structure has been to promote healthy reproduction. This does not mean that a particular couple who are not fertile should not be allowed to marry. The fact that they are not fertile is really nobody else's business. But it does mean a man should not marry his sister. That structure or tradition is bad for healthy reproduction. The traditional policy of recognizing marriage between any adult man and woman who do not have other mating obligations to form a bond and agreement to only mate with each other, but not allowing it if they are too closely related by family line, is a good one. Its not perfect, but its good. Now there is more to marriage then simple reproduction--there is the bond between the adults and the affections of romantic love and more firm kinds of love that grow out of it. These bonds can be formed by homosexual couples. In this respect homosexual partnerships resemble marriage of infertile couples. But there is on this account no good reason have to call these couples marriage and to have society forced to drop the distinction and to have policies toward such unions identical to the policies toward marriages.

[teeman8r]

Speaking in favour of the bill, backbencher Lawrence Scott told the Bermuda Assembly

BACKBENCHER? REALLY?

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[ZULU]

Good.

Interesting the negative comment comes from a reporter with a lisp in his first name. :)

[nickcarraway]

It’s a parliamentary term.