UK Judges Uphold Gay Marriage Ban in the West Indies

It is quite scarce that my ghast is fully flabbered, but it transpired this week. I bear in mind bac in 2013 performing a Television discussion with Tory MP Nadine Dorries on the topic of equal marriage, or homosexual relationship as quite a few people today know it by. She was describing why she was from it, not in theory, but for the reason that of the actuality that, as she observed it, the way the laws was drafted it would prejudice spiritual liberty. I was heartily ill of this argument and blurted out: “It’s really uncomplicated, Nadine. If you do not like homosexual marriage, never marry a homosexual!” To be honest to her she now states it is the vote she  most regrets in her 17 yrs in parliament.

There is very little the fantastic Lord likes superior than a sinner that repenteth, and in that regard let us flip our attention to the decision by the Judicial Committee of the Uk Privy’s Council’s final decision to overturn the legalization of homosexual marriage in Bermuda, which is a British Abroad Territory. In addition, in a different judgement they ruled that there was no correct to identical-intercourse marriage below the constitution of the Cayman Islands. Now, if you have never ever heard of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, you can be forgiven. I hadn’t both. But it is efficiently the Supreme Courtroom for British Overseas Territories and commonwealth states.

The attorney standard of Bermuda appealed to the JCPC after the country’s court docket of attraction and supreme courtroom heard that part 53 of the island’s Domestic Partnership Act 2018, which confines marriage to a union amongst a man and a girl was invalid.

Given that Exact same Sexual intercourse Marriage has been legal in the Uk due to the fact 2013, you’d imagine it would have been uncontroversial for the JCPC to come across that it need to keep on being legal in Bermunda. A person of the 4 JCPC judges courageously defied the other a few, but Bermuda has now regressed to the dark days of social bigotry thanks to British isles judges. You could not make it up.

The West Indies has hardly ever been acknowledged for their progressive views on social problems but progress has gradually been designed on different islands more than the very last two many years. Even Sandals lifted the ban on gay couples keeping in their resorts in 2004.

Impartial international locations have each suitable to make what ever regulations they like, and then be held accountable for it. But if they use the judicial part of the Queen’s Privy Council, then certainly that overall body has the obligation to interpret the law in these nations through the prism of simple human legal rights laws.

Wouldn’t it now be ironic if this finished up in the European Court of Human Rights, given it is a little something that impacts two West Indian islands?

Surely it also places the long run of the JCPC below problem way too.

The upshot of all this is that although prior exact sexual intercourse marriages continue being legitimate in Bermuda, that’s the close of them. There will be no much more new ones. What an absolute shame the judges of the JCPC have proved to be. I hope if any of them have gay children or grandchildren they will categorical their sights in no uncertain phrases.