If you want the benefits, then get hitched

Senator B.J. Cruz knew that proposing a bill to allow for same sex civil unions on Guam would be controversial, given the island’s predominantly Catholic population. Still, he did it in order to provide important rights and protections to couples of the same sex that now only apply to heterosexual couples. That takes courage. If a couple of the same sex wants to publicly and legally enter into a union in order to receive rights and protections regarding such issues as hospital visitation, inheritance, property, taxes, survivors’ benefits, and Social Security, they should be allowed to do so. It’s appropriate, though, that Cruz makes the distinction between a civil union and a marriage, a distinction that acquiesces to the biological and religious implications of heterosexual marriage in society.

What I would encourage the good senator not to pursue, though, is legislation recognizing as married or united– whether they are heterosexual or of the same sex  - a couple that simply chooses to live together for a certain amount of time and then calls themselves married. According to the web sites www.nolo.com and www.unmarried.org, 16 states recognize what are commonly referred to as “common law” marriages. Both websites state that contrary to popular belief, nowhere in the U.S. is it true that if you simply live together with a person for a certain length of time, you are common-law married. The 16 states that allow for common law marriages require couples to perform some variation of these actions: (1) they intend and agree to be married; (2) they continuously cohabitate; and (3) they publicly declare in some way (using the same last name, filing a joint tax return) that they are husband and wife.

If a couple intends and agrees to be married, has cohabitated for a certain number of years, and publicly declares to friends, relatives, and anyone else that will listen that they are husband and wife (or partner and partner), why don’t they just simply do the deed? A marriage license on Guam costs $30 at the Department of Public Health and Social Services - $50 extra if you don’t want to wait the required five days. The Superior Court of Guam charges $50 to be married by a judge, including issuance of the marriage certificate. If you want to go really cheap, just ask one of Guam’s senators to perform your civil ceremony – I’m sure most of them will do it for free, because they’ll want your votes in the next election. So getting legally hitched in this territory does not require a huge expense. It’s understandable if a couple cannot afford the proverbial big, fat Chamorro church wedding. But if they’re too lazy or cheap to go through the simple motions of getting married civilly, or if for some reason they cannot be married (perhaps one of them has never gotten divorced from a previous spouse) then that couple doesn’t deserve the tax or other legal benefits that come with being married (or, if Sen. Cruz’s same-sex union provision is passed into law, legally united).

It’s ridiculous when you hear couples, whether they’ve been together only a few months or 20 years, refer to each other’s families as “my in-laws” or “my husband’s/wife’s family,” when they haven’t actually taken the steps to earn that title. If you want the benefits, then you should have to do what the rest of us had to do to earn them. It’s not fair, and in fact is discriminatory, to give tax and other benefits of being married to couples that do not actually get married.

According to the 2000 Census, there are eleven million unmarried people living with an unmarried partner in the United States today, and this number has grown 72 percent in the last decade alone. People choose not to get married for many reasons. But if you want the benefits, then you should have to legally unite to get them. If, as the Guam Youth Congress and Sen. Cruz have pointed out, you want to make that declaration with another person but cannot because of your gender – well, that’s where his bill, and the United States Constitution, enter into the picture.