Isle of Man passes civil-partnership law 
A same-sex civil-partnership law has passed the parliament of the Isle of Man, a self-governing British crown dependency in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland.
The law, which takes effect April 6, includes all the rights and obligations of marriage, the same as the United Kingdom's civil-partnership law.
British gay activist George Broadhead commented: "As a Manxman myself who was born on the IOM in 1933 and realized I was gay at school in the 1940s, I know only too well what a frightful homophobic place it was -- much of it stemming, as elsewhere, from religious bigotry. Activists on the island itself and the rest of the UK launched a campaign to get the law changed and I am proud to have played a part in this."
