Bermuda Bans Gay Marriage Months After Supreme Court Approval

By Ray Downs 

The Bermuda Flag flies in Sandy's Parish, Bermuda, on May 30. This month, Bermuda's Parliament voted to ban gay marriage just months after the Supreme Court voted to allow them.

File Photo by CJ Gunther/EPA-EFE

UPI -- Just months after gay couples in Bermuda were allowed to marry under a Supreme Court ruling, the island country's government reimposed a ban under a new law.

Member of Parliament Lawrence Scott said the Domestic Partnerships Act of 2017 helps the LGBTQ community by giving gay couples "benefits it has been asking for," while keeping traditionalists happy because it doesn't change the the "traditional definition of marriage."

"As it stands now, they 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 benefits are what they really want," Scott said, the Royal Gazette reported.

Is it? Or is it recognition, acceptance, and moral justification?

The bill passed Bermuda's Parliament 24-10.

According to Pink News, Bermuda became the first country to re-ban gay marriage.

Shadow Economic Development Minister Grant Gibbons, who voted against the bill, said it marked a step backwards for Bermuda.

"This is a human rights issue. We are taking away marriage equality rights from the LGBTQ community," Gibbons said, according to the Jamaican Observer.

Gay marriage has been a controversial topic in Bermuda.

In 2016, 69 percent of voters rejected a referendum to approve gay marriage. But less than 50 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot, making the vote invalid.

But in May, Bermudian Winston Godwin and his Canadian fiancé, Greg DeRoche, won a legal ruling in Bermuda's Supreme Court to allow gay marriages to take place in the country. That paved the way for gay marriages until Friday's vote.

Those already married before Friday will not be affected by the new law.

74% of ‘Underage’ Asylum Seekers in Denmark are Adults, Teeth & Bone Tests Show

    © Nils Meilvang / Scanpix Denmark / Reuters

The Danish Immigration Service has questioned the age of some 800 asylum seekers who said they are younger than 18. In almost three out of four cases, ‘unaccompanied minors’ proved to be adults, according to a report.

Experts at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Forensic Medicine have been investigating the age of unaccompanied asylum seekers who arrived in Denmark this year and said they are under 18, Jyllands-Posten daily reported.

The Danish Immigration Service suspected that 800 asylum seekers lied about their real age.

Using X-rays of teeth and finger bones, the institute concluded that 74 percent of those tested (almost 600 persons) are in fact aged over 18.

In Denmark, unaccompanied minors enjoy a number of advantages over adults, including the ability to bring their parents to the country as part of family reunification, the newspaper reports.

By the end of November, the number of age tests commissioned by the Danish Immigration Service in 2016 was more than double those performed last year, Jyllands-Posten said.

The Department of Forensic Medicine said up to 1,000 age tests are likely to be carried out by the end of the year.

Martin Henriksen, a spokesman for the Danish People's Party, said asylum seekers deliberately hid their age in order to receive benefits that they are not entitled to.

The head of the asylum department in the Danish Refugee Council, Eva Singer, painted a different picture, however.

“There are many of these young people who don’t know exactly how old they are, because it’s not something that is registered in their home countries in the same way as in Denmark,” she told Jyllands-Posten.

I'm sure there are some, but I seriously doubt that that number is very large.

Integration Minister Inger Støjberg said the high number of migrants exposed as giving an incorrect age is proof that the Danish asylum system is efficient.

“The Danish Immigration Service is making a major effort to expose those who cheat,” she told the newspaper.

And, now what? What will you do with those who lied to and cheated the Danish people? Are these the kind of people you want to welcome into Denmark? They are already abusing you; do you think they will respect your daughters?

Brand Merkel Comes Under Pressure Over Migrants

Katya Adler
Europe editor
From BBCn Europe

It didn't much look like a protest.

Lots of casually dressed, smiley very middle-class Germans - some with children, others with dogs, chatting animatedly in beautiful parkland on the outskirts of Hamburg on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

But this was indeed a protest group, putting together a petition in an attempt to stop a new refugee centre being built on the green.

Syrian refugees Wael Al-Awis, 31, right, his wife Reem Haskour, 30, and their
son Ali Al-Awis, 6, visit the harbor October 10, 2015 in Hamburg,
Germany. Getty Images

Germany could see more than a million refugees this year

 - and Hamburg is a popular destination

People here were keen to emphasise that they were not anti-immigrant. Their main aim, they said, was to protect an area of natural beauty. But once we got talking, broader worries soon surfaced.

Birgit said finding a home was difficult enough for Germans. Hamburg has an acute housing shortage at the best of times. With the arrival of tens of thousands of immigrants, the port city threatened to burst at the seams.

In desperation, the authorities have been turning shipping containers into refugee homes and repossessing empty commercial properties and open spaces to build new migrant centres.

"I don't think Angela Merkel has any idea what she started," Birgit concluded.

Hanno kept shaking his head when he said, "I just don't think Germany can integrate this number of people. It's a real worry. A real worry."

This was no demonstration of the minority anti-immigrant far right in Germany, so adept at grabbing headlines.

These were Angela Merkel's core voters: the comfortable middle classes. Now plagued by doubt and insecurity.

To be clear: most Germans don't question a duty to help those fleeing war or human rights abuses but they do find the huge number of arrivals unsettling.

More than a million refugees are expected here by the end of the year. Some experts we spoke to told us the figure could reach 1.5m.

Like the captain of a football team, Chancellor Merkel keeps repeating: "Wir schaffen es!" ("We can do it!").

It's her version of Barack Obama's "Yes We Can" - but increasingly Germans are asking: How?

Lea, 12 (L), gives lollipops to Syrian refugee children at a welcome festival
(Willkommensfest) for migrants on September 19, 2015 in the
Karolinenviertel neighborhood of Hamburg, Germany Getty Images

Groups of people have welcomed migrants to Hamburg 

- but many worry about how the country will cope

Only one in three here say they agree with Mrs Merkel's migrant policy, according to the most recent poll. And she's slipping in popularity ratings.

The joke used to be that she was a politician of 'little steps' who made decisions only once she'd studied the opinion polls.

But a summer of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean and desperate crowds thronging at the gates of Europe seems to have changed all that.

Mrs Merkel completely surprised her countrymen a month ago by unilaterally declaring all Syrian refugees welcome and refusing to put an upper limit on how many Germany would take in.

It seemed like a passionate outburst, a spontaneous throwing of caution to wind by a woman traditionally admired by Germans for her stable, strong and stoic disposition. All sought-after attributes here.

'Hers is a solid brand'

Florian Juerg, a branding consultant, wonders whether Angela Merkel is now expressing her "other self".

"Until now she has acted like the sensible scientist that she is," he told me (Mrs Merkel is a trained physicist). "But suddenly she's transformed back into the moral-driven pastor's daughter of her youth."

Hamburg is the German hub for marketing and brand imaging.

I asked Florian if "Brand Merkel" would be dented by the migrant crisis.

"Not in the long-term," he told me. "Building up a brand takes a long time and the last 10 years of Merkel as Chancellor have been good for Germans. Hers is a solid brand."

For now. But if her refugee policy backfires, it will stain her political legacy.

Mrs Merkel's nickname here is Mutti, or Mummy.

Election after election, Germans have put their trust in her to decide what's best for them. She's seen as key in making Germany the success story it is today.

'Merkel must go' reads one sign in the city of Magdeburg

The way she's handling the migrant crisis is the biggest gamble of her political career.

Brand Merkel may have helped make Brand Germany great but she could now inadvertently damage her country.

The arrival of so many asylum seekers in one go will impact Germany's economy, its society and its politics.

Already there are well-chronicled splits within Mrs Merkel's own conservative bloc.

"We have to get the balance right," said Lorenz Caffier, CDU Interior Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

"The German constitution demands that we look after refugees but the benefits we give them are too generous.

"Frankly, I'm amazed at any migrant who doesn't choose to come to Germany. Our benefit system acts like a travel agency. We must put the well-being of our own people first."

Cucumbers, bananas - or greater matters?

German newspapers are full of reports about the benefits refugees receive compared to German citizens on welfare, leading, in some quarters, to a sense of injustice.

There's also a more widespread worry about strains on the national health and education systems.
"Germany can't take everyone in," Mr Caffier told me. "Up till now we had no choice. Angela Merkel didn't open the door to the refugees. They were already at the door.

"What was she going to do - send tanks to the Austrian border? Actually it's impossible to close borders. Any politician who suggests that is lying."

Excuse me, Hungary just did!

He insisted vehemently that the rest of Europe play its part.

"We Germans can't do this alone. Brussels has to decide whether it's going to focus on the curvature of cucumbers and bananas or tackle European issues of importance."

In the meantime, other European leaders are not queuing up to take in asylum seekers by the hundreds and thousands. Or, hundreds of thousands.

Chancellor Merkel's lead role in the migrant crisis is as controversial in the rest of Europe as it is at home.

The queen of consensus politics is no more.

Denmark Publishes Reduced Benefits to Dissuade Asylum Seekers

Denmark, the only EU country that's awake!

In response to human traffickers publishing information about lucrative refugee benefits in EU countries, the Danish government plans to launch a public campaign designed to dissuade asylum seekers from heading to Copenhagen.

Integration Minister Inger Støjberg said earlier this week she is going to run advertisements in foreign newspapers, which will include information deterring refugees from coming to Denmark.

The announcement was made shortly after Denmark's Jyllands-Posten daily published a document people traffickers use to help asylum seekers compare different levels of welfare benefits in Europe.

According to the Local, the document revealed monthly waiting times for family reunification and the amount of monthly benefits available to refugees in prosperous EU nations, including Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden.

“Of course, living conditions – including finances – is something asylum seekers are looking for. Why else would human smugglers have developed and published this systematic review of countries, including Denmark, on a website where they provide services based on this kind of information,” Støjberg wrote in a Facebook post that featured a screenshot of the document.

Benefits Cut
The integration minister said the document justified the government's decision to cut benefits for refugees by up to 45 percent. 

“There is something strange about the fact that a refugee would travel through several countries before ending up in Denmark, Norway, Sweden or Germany,” Minister Støjberg told DR TV, according to the Local.

In an attempt to counter the Danish refugee deluge, special ads will be introduced in newspapers, featuring “factual information” on the benefits, as well as details of the new restrictions the government plans to enact. “That kind of information spreads very quickly,” the minister said. She added the campaign could be potentially run in countries such as Turkey and “other places that human smugglers keep an eye on.”

Last week, a similar idea was voiced by the Danish People’s Party (part of the new coalition governing the country), which suggested launching a video campaign dissuading asylum seekers from coming. But the proposal came under fire, leading Venstre spokesman Jakob Ellemann-Jensen to dismiss the idea as “un-Danish," the Local reported.

Asylum seekers doubled
Denmark saw its asylum numbers almost double last year, with 14,815 people arriving in 2014 compared to 7,557 in 2013. The number of asylum seekers had increased from 6,184 in 2012 to 7,557 in 2013, according to the Danish Immigration Service.