Guam, an overseas territory of the United States, began licensing and recognizing same-sex marriages on June 9, 2015, following a ruling of the District Court of Guam on June 5, 2015, that held the territory’s prohibition of same-sex marriage unconstitutional.
Guam is the first overseas territory of the United States to recognise same-sex marriage.
On April 8, 2015, a lesbian couple were refused a marriage license at the Department of Public Health and Social Services. The next day the editorial board of the Guam Pacific Daily News endorsed the legalization of same-sex marriage in Guam. Attorney-General Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson endorsed the Department’s refusal, but when later asked if Guam law violated the Fourteenth Amendment said: “Good question. I can’t comment.” The couple filed a lawsuit challenging the territory’s refusal to grant then a marriage license, Aguero v. Calvo, in the District Court of Guam on April 13.
On April 15, 2015, Attorney General Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson ordered Guam officials to begin licensing same-sex marriages, which would have made Guam the first U.S. territory to legalize same-sex marriage. Barrett-Anderson issued a directive to the Department of Public Health and Social Services to immediately process applications from same-sex couples for marriage licenses, instructing that same-sex applicants be treated “with dignity and equality under the Constitution”. She cited the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Latta v. Otter, which is controlling precedent in federal courts in Guam. However, Governor Eddie Calvo responded the next day by questioning the legal basis for Barrett-Anderson’s memorandum. He suggested same-sex marriage licensing should wait until the Supreme Court ruled on a case before it. Governor Calvo said the question of marriage should be addressed by the Legislature or voters of Guam, and the acting head of the Guam Department of Public Health and Social Services stated that his office would not accept applications from same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses for the time being.
On May 8, Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood, Chief Judge of Guam District Court, denied the defendants’ request to delay proceedings pending action by the U.S. Supreme Court in related cases. Noting they are represented by a Special Assistant Attorney General appointed on May 1, he set a briefing schedule and scheduled a hearing for June 5.
On June 5, Judge Tydingco-Gatewood issued a ruling which struck down Guam’s statutory ban on same-sex marriage. The ruling was issued immediately after the court hearing proceedings and went into effect on 8am Tuesday June 9. Same-sex marriages became performable and recognised in the U.S. territory from that date. Attorneys representing the government of Guam said in a May 18 court filing that “should a court strike current Guam law, they would respect and follow such a decision”.
On June 9, 2015, Loretta M. Pangelinan, 28, and Kathleen M. Aguero, 29, were the first of several same-sex couples to receive a marriage license in the territory’s capital, Hagåtña. The first couple to marry was Deasia Johnson of Killeen, Texas and Nikki Dismuke of New Orleans, who married each other in a brief ceremony in the office of Public Health Director James Gillan on the morning on June 9, 2015, the day the island territory became the United States’ first overseas territory to recognise same-sex marriage.