[ISL] "Meet the Toronto gay couple challenging Bermuda’s marriage law"

[rfmcdonald]

Daily Xtra's Rob Salerno describes the Canadian-Bermudian couple who want to liberalize marriage law in Bermuda.

Winston Godwin and Greg DeRoche just want to get married. Godwin’s homeland of Bermuda doesn’t recognize same-sex relationships, however, so the couple is taking the government to court from 1,800 km away in their current home, Toronto.

Godwin and DeRoche, who live together and have been dating for a year and a half, decided to get married while skipping rocks together on the beach in Bermuda on June 22, the night before the British territory held a referendum on same-sex marriage or civil unions. By a two-to-one margin, the country rejected both in the non-binding vote.

At the time, LGBT activists pledged to continue the fight for marriage rights through the court system. Godwin spotted an ad looking for couples willing to file a test case against the government for same-sex marriage and, after discussing it with DeRoche, agreed to make a very public bid to be the first same-sex couple to wed on Bermuda.

“It’s exciting. There’s a lot of people who’ve contacted me to say they do support me, who say they’re completely for it — people who don’t even know me,” Godwin says.

The couple filed their request to marry on July 4, assisted by their lawyer Mark Pettingill, who is also a member of parliament in Bermuda’s governing party and a former attorney-general. On July 7, the application was rejected on the grounds that the Matrimonial Causes Act only permits marriage between a man and a woman. The next day, the Bermuda House of Assembly passed an amendment protecting the act from challenges under the Human Rights Act, which bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. On July 14, the Senate rejected the bill by a 6-5 vote, but the Senate can only delay legislation for up to a year.