Less than a year after legalizing same-sex marriage, Bermuda has implemented a new law making it legal for same-sex couples to enter into domestic partnerships but not marry.
The British territory's government is believed to be the first in the world to reverse course on same-sex marriage.
Same-sex couples who wed in recent months will not have their marital status annulled.
LBGT civil rights groups said that domestic partnerships amount to a second-class status and that it is unprecedented for a jurisdiction to take away the legal right to marriage after it has been granted.
"Governor [John] Rankin and the Bermuda Parliament have shamefully made Bermuda the first national territory in the world to repeal marriage equality,'' said Ty Cobb, director of the Human Rights Campaign Global.
Britain could have blocked the bill from being enacted but decided not to.
British Prime Minister Theresa May said she was "seriously disappointed" but decided not to act because the "bill has been democratically passed by the Parliament of Bermuda," BBC reported.
The Atlantic island legalized same-sex marriage in May 2017 after a Supreme Court ruling.