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Bermuda Legalized Same-Sex Marriage 6 Months Ago. Now, It’s Going to Be Banned.

LONDON — At a time when support for same-sex marriage seems to be slowly advancing in some parts of the world, legislators in Bermuda have restored a ban on the unions, just six months after the island’s highest court approved them.

The Senate in the wealthy, self-governing British territory voted 8 to 3 in favor of a new law to allow only domestic partnerships for same-sex couples. The vote represented a rare reversal of an international trend broadening the number of jurisdictions that recognize same-sex marriage.

The vote on Wednesday came less than a week after the House of Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, voted 24 to 10 in favor of the same proposal. To take effect, the Atlantic island’s governor, John Rankin, would have to sign the bill into a law, but that is usually a formality.

Most of mainland Britain legalized same-sex marriage in 2014, but Northern Ireland has not followed suit.

Andrew Simons, a senator from the party One Bermuda Alliance, which opposed the new law, said the change in legislation was “an affront to people’s dignity,” according to the Royal Gazette, a local news outlet.

“As human beings, we should have the ability to enter into a marriage between two people who love each other, and this relationship should be recognized by the state,” he said.

But Kathy Lynn Simmons, the Senate leader, said the new legislation reflected “the majority sentiment.” She added, “We have a bill that gives rights to the minority, it also protects the interests of the majority.”

The new law, known as the Domestic Partnership Act, is not retroactive. There have been at least six same-sex marriages in Bermuda since May, when Judge Charles-Etta Simmons ruled that banning the unions was “inconsistent with the provision of the Human Rights Act as they constitute deliberate different treatment on the basis of sexual orientation.”

In July, however, the Progressive Labor Party, which is backed by many traditionally conservative church organizations, took power and began to mobilize legislative support for a reversal of the ruling.

The development in Bermuda recalled a comparable sequence of events in California in November 2008, when the State Constitution was amended to define marriage as between a man and a woman, ending five months of legalized same-sex marriage and reversing a ruling by the State Supreme Court in June of that year. That law, known as Proposition 8, was later overturned in the courts.

In June 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.

A survey this month by the Pew Research Center found that 26 countries recognize same-sex marriage. The most recent addition was Australia, where Parliament voted this month to legalize the marriages. (If a recent court ruling in Austria takes effect in 2019 as expected, the number would rise to 27.)

“Worldwide, roughly two-thirds of the countries that allow gay marriage — 17 of 26 — are in Western Europe,” Pew said. “Still, a number of Western European nations, particularly Italy and Switzerland, do not allow same-sex unions. And, so far, no countries in Central and Eastern Europe have legalized gay marriage.”

South Africa is the only African nation to have made the unions legal, and New Zealand and Australia are the only countries in the Asia-Pacific region to have done so. Pew noted that Taiwan’s highest court ruled in favor of gay unions this year but gave Parliament two years to implement the ruling.

“Not surprisingly,” it added, “same-sex marriage has advanced mostly in countries and regions where acceptance of homosexuality is high.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: 6 Months In, Gay Marriage Is Reversed In Bermuda. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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