ABOVE: Watermark file photo by Dylan Todd.
Immigration authorities in the Cayman Islands have recognized the marriage of a same-sex couple who legally married outside of the British territory.
The Cayman Compass newspaper on Dec. 23 reported Paul Pearson and Randall Pinder legally married in Ireland.
The Caymanian Status and Permanent Residency Board denied the couple’s application to have Pinder acknowledged as a “spouse of a permanent residency holder” on grounds the Cayman Islands’ Constitution defines marriage as between a man and a woman. The Immigration Appeals Tribunal last week overturned the board’s decision.
“Recognizing opposite-sex foreign marriages and failing to recognize same-sex foreign marriages would be affording different and unjustifiable treatment to different persons on the grounds of sexual orientation,” states the ruling in the couple’s favor.
Cayman Islands Grand Court Chief Justice Anthony Smellie in March 2019 struck down the territory’s same-sex marriage ban. The Cayman Islands Court of Appeal a few months later overturned the ruling.
The territory’s Civil Partnership Law took effect in September.
