Turks & Caicos won’t recognize same-sex marriage, so couple who wed in Broward went to court

Richard Sankar and Tim Haymon were at home in the sun-swept Turks and Caicos Islands amid the COVID-19 pandemic when the two, looking at the possibility of another Donald Trump presidency less than 600 miles away, decided it was time to get married while same-sex marriages were still allowed in the United States.

But nine months into the marriage, performed in Fort Lauderdale, they ran into problems. Based on his marriage to Sankar, a Turks and Caicos citizen, Haymon applied to legally reside and work in the islands without the need for a work permit. The territory’s immigration office denied the request, saying that Haymon did not meet the definition of “spouse.”

The immigration department’s refusal to recognize their marriage has led to a lawsuit against the government of the Turks and Caicos. The couple’s argument is that the island’s immigration laws do not define what a spouse is, and that failure to recognize their marriage is a violation of their right to privacy. The lawsuit, which is expected to be ruled on Friday after 16 months, is sure to be appealed either way it goes.

Home to about 40,000 people, the socially conservative Turks and Caicos prides itself on upholding Christian values and defines marriage as a biblical union between a man and a woman. It is among several British overseas territories and Caribbean islands whose constitutions do not expressly guarantee same-sex rights.

The case is the latest battle in a largely conservative region where politicians and pastors have been unapologetically vocal about what they have claimed are efforts by British politicians to force gay-marriage laws on their self-governing overseas territories.

“We were so naive,” said Haymon, 60, who said he didn’t think the government would refuse to recognize his November 2020 marriage.

Sankar, who has called the island chain home for 27 years and made a successful career as a Realtor, added: “We were more concerned about Trump getting in and us losing our legal rights in the United States.”

The couple say that unlike in other islands where gay marriage has been litigated and the cases have made their way all the way to the London-based Privy Council, this isn’t about the right to marry. They are already married, they say, and should be afforded the rights of any spouse. In the Turks and Caicos, the spouse of a Turks Islander can reside and work without a work permit and eventually gain Turks Islander status.

Tim Prudhoe, a lawyer with the island-based Stanbrook Prudhoe, argues that there is no definition of “spouse” in the Turks and Caicos Islands’ immigration legislation. Instead, marriages between two men are considered “void” in the island’s marriage ordinance.

His clients, he argues, have a valid overseas same sex-marriage, which should be recognized in the territory, and they also have rights enshrined in its Constitution. Those rights include equality before the law and a right to their private family life. To bolster his argument, Prudhoe has cited “many decisions” from Europe, specifically the European Court of Human Rights, which currently has Bermuda’s same-sex legislation before it.

“We had Italian cases. We had Norwegian cases. All of them said a right to privacy involves and encompasses someone’s decision to be married to someone of the same sex,” Prudhoe said.

“In terms of wider impact, certainly this is a game-changer,” he added. “Until we have a decision on the issues raised by this case, I see no real prospect of the TCI gay community being generally known and acknowledged,” he said. “They’ll be a weirdly quasi-hidden community in a country claiming to be inclusive.”

Concerns like any married couple

Haymon and Sankar said when they initially tied the knot in Broward County, they did not think about the challenges that awaited them in the Turks and Caicos. Despite the country’s conservative values and constitutional ban on gay marriages, they had not really run into problems.

But as they marked their nine months of marriage in August of 2021, they began to think about their union, wondering, what if one of them became ill? What if Haymon couldn’t reside permanently and had to return to Florida?

“It’s all the normal things that couples take for granted that we are not entitled to as spouses,” said Haymon. “Those are the things we’re mostly concerned about. Are we affected? We stay at home a great deal. We’re not out a lot other than his work and our close friends. So we don’t really encounter a lot of outward homophobia nowadays.”

Unlike in the British overseas territories of the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, where civil unions and domestic-partnership laws have been enacted, there is no such legal recognition in the Turks and Caicos, even though same-sex relations were decriminalized in the territory in 2001.

Like many of his Caribbean counterparts, Turks and Caicos Islands Premier Charles Washington Misick, who leads the Progressive National Party, has pushed back over the years on efforts he has construed as attempts by the United Kingdom to have greater oversight in the affairs of overseas territories.

While in the opposition, Misick said “UK politicians are engaged in a strategy of attrition to neutralize the authority of elected politicians and marginalize the voice of the indigenous people of the Caribbean Overseas Territories.”

In 2022, when a British politician introduced legislation empowering UK-appointed governors in overseas territories to enact legislation enabling gay marriages, Misick again voiced his concerns. He said he would be guided by the views of the voters. The leader, who is expected to call for elections soon, also invoked the Bible and social mores.

“I think equality before the law is possible while still preserving the biblical principle of marriage,” Misick told the TCI Weekly, defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Despite its laid-back beach vibes the Caribbean isn’t as progressive as its image often depicts. In fact, only a few islands would qualify as being progressive. Most espouse traditional views about the role of women and the sexes. In 2000, such attitudes led to the United Kingdom stepping in and decriminalizing same-sex acts between adults after its overseas territories had refused to do so.

Fourteen years later after Britain legalized marriage equality, the overseas territories still refused to follow suit. In the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, however, the climate has been different. Gay and human-rights activists have openly campaigned for change and have slowly found acceptance.

In Bermuda, the same-sex marriage battle has led to three reinstatements over the years after same-sex marriages laws were abolished and then legalized. The UK Privy Council finally issued a ruling in 2022 upholding the ban on same-sex marriage by both the Bermuda and Cayman Islands constitutions.

Despite the rulings both countries have come up with alternatives, though without the legal title of marriage. In Bermuda, the Domestic Partnership Act of 2018 provides legal recognition to couples. And in the Cayman Islands, where the first gay pride parade took place in July 2021, the territory passed the Civil Partnership Law in 2020, recognizing same-sex civil partnerships.

Prudhoe said before pursuing the litigation in the Turks and Caicos, which names the island’s immigration director and attorney general as defendants, he suggested that the islands “do what Cayman has done.”

The Cayman Islands enacted civil-partnership legislation “which says ‘For a list of countries’ — which the U.S. was listed as one — a legal same sex marriage there, won’t be described as a marriage in Cayman, but we will recognize it as the equivalent,” he said.

“It’s only because [Turks and Caicos] failed to do that — they didn’t even respond to us — that the litigation had to happen. All that they needed to do to take the wind out of our sails, to stop us from litigating, was exactly what we asked them, just copy the Cayman Islands.”

Haymon and Sankar say they didn’t set out to be activists or trailblazers. They just want to enjoy life as any two people who love each other. But along, the way, they also want to help change things for others.

“We weren’t born and raised in the Turks and Caicos Islands,” said Haymon, who is originally from Flint, Michigan and moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1994. “However, a portion of this is for the people who are born and bred so that they don’t feel that they can’t be who they are and love who they are.”