The proponents of legalizing same-sex unions claim that the issue that Bill 138 seeks to remedy is discrimination. They claim that the government is discriminating against the unmarried by not providing them with the legal benefits provided to married biological couples. Sen. Rory J. Respicio echoes this claim in an op-ed piece for the PDN (June 15, 2009). “Every American deserves equal treatment from their government,” he says, “although we cannot require it from churches.” Evidently, he is willing to let the churches who want to discriminate against non-biological couples continue to do so. But the implication is very clear that any church which does not sanction same-sex union is discriminatory.

Is it true that either the government or the Church is discriminating against the unmarried when it comes to their ability to enter marriage? To analyze the truth of these statements we need to understand the process of getting married. Marriage is the basis of the family. Just as the family pre-existed the state so did marriage. It also pre-existed the Church. Neither the Church not the state established marriage, nor can they change it. The right to marry is a basic human right. Nothing that the state or Church can do can take away that right. The only thing Church or state can do is to regulate – for the public good – how marriage is contracted. The way they do this is by requiring a “form” for marriage. The state’s form is called the “civil form” and the Church’s form is called the “canonical form.” The canonical form has existed only since the sixteenth century. It was introduced to solve the problem of clandestine marriages where a man would marry a woman without anybody else knowing about it. The civil form only dates from the French Revolution when the ties between church and state were broken. The state then assumed the role of regulating marriage as a civil institution.

Before the eighteenth century there was no civil form, and before the sixteenth century there was not even a canonical form. Marriage was contracted simply by the exchange of marriage vows between the bridegroom and the bride in a family setting. Then they retired to their private quarters to consummate their vows by having marital intercourse. They became two in one flesh literally by having vaginal intercourse. Check the bible for the descriptions of how biological couples married in ancient times. You will see that this was the way it was done because there is no other way.

The canonical form only binds Catholics; everybody else is free to marry in whatever way they choose. If a couple not bound to the canonical form chooses to thumb their noses at the state and simply exchange their vows privately (albeit with witnesses) without a civil license they are validly married even though the state may show its displeasure by refusing to grant any civil effects. To have a valid marriage the couple has only to agree to three things. They have to give to each other the right to have the complete sexual act needed to achieve a pregnancy. Secondly, this relationship has to be exclusive, and, thirdly, this relationship must be intended to last until the death of one of the parties. Then they have to consummate the marriage by performing the marital act. Contracepted sexual acts and homosexual sex acts do not consummate a marriage. Apart from the canonical form that the Catholic Church has established for Catholics to regulate the sacrament of marriage, no act of the state can impede anybody from contracting marriage as long as they can fulfill the three conditions just mentioned. To enter into marriage is a natural right that all enjoy if they wish to marry.

Since the three conditions to enter marriage apply equally to all, where is the discrimination? Since the benefits according by the state to those who marry by fulfilling these conditions are available to all, where is the discrimination? The fact that only a biological couple (a man and a woman) can fulfill these conditions does not constitute discrimination since these benefits are given in recognition and support of those who undertake the socially significant task of raising the biological families that will be the future of Guam.

Those who propose Bill 138 really want to redesign marriage. They want to call marriage something that is not marriage. Moreover, they want social validation of their attempt to redefine what marriage is all about. Whether they are right in doing so (the moral question) is not the issue for us who oppose this bill. If they wish to lives their lives in this fashion, no one from our side will object. All we want is not to be a part of it. Now, since when does the unwillingness to be a part of someone else’s social redesign project constitute discrimination?