SO IT'S "PRIDE" MONTH - A MEMORY OF "A PISSING MATCH" - AND GUAM'S TRUE SACRED COW

By Tim Rohr

So it's "Pride" month, and I set out in this post to offer some profound reflections, including the fact that currently, thanks to what some still call "An Act of God," Guam is more concerned with power and water than it is with "pride" or anything else. 

But, I got distracted with memories. So I'll share the following as a sort of Part 1 for what I ultimately and eventually aim to address: "marriage." 

For now. Here's the "memory."

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Every June 3, I am reminded of a mistake I made. 

On that day, in 2009, I got drawn into what then-Senator B.J. Cruz (hereinafter referred to as "B.J.") eventually called "a pissing match."

IT HAPPENED LIKE THIS

On June 3, 2009, the Guam Youth Congress recruited B.J. to introduce legislation that would legalize same-sex civil unions - Guam's first foray into this stuff.

I was sitting in my office minding my own business when I got a call that afternoon. I won't say from whom, but it was from - or at least in the name of - an important person in the local Catholic Church.

The caller gave me the news about the bill and then asked: "Do you want to do something about this?"

There were a few reasons why I was called: (1) I had been somewhat active publicly defending the Catholic faith from the usual attackers in letters to the editor; (2) I had recently gained some notoriety advancing Guam's first anti-abortion law in nearly thirty years (a ban on partial-birth abortion); and (3) I owned and operated a Catholic bookstore. 

My mistake was not responding with - why don't you call the Knights of Columbus, or any one of the many deacons, or really anybody but me. 

Instead, I said I'd check it out. 

As I expected, the media had immediately latched onto the bill and was looking for a fight with the local Catholic Church.

The Archdiocese of Agana, aka then-Archbishop Apuron, was an easy "whipping boy" - a role he - or the people who spoke for him - almost always stupidly and immediately obliged. 

I had learned long ago never to engage any social issue from a religious perspective because that's exactly what the other side was waiting for so "they" (the other side) can discard you as a religious nut-case, or ridicule you out into the street with their false "separation of church and state" arguments.

It doesn't matter that there is no such "separation" in the U.S. Constitution. It's a lie that's been told so many times that most people think it's there. So it works.

IT GET'S MESSY

The whole affair began to get really messy when the Guam Youth Congress sponsored several "townhalls" to promote the legislation. 

As expected, the religious folk showed up. 

I was at all the townhalls and I have to say that the "protestants" did a very good job. 

They (the "protestants") presented their views succinctly and respectfully, and even made some really significant logical arguments. I remember one black pastor saying something like the following:

Look at me. Am I black? Of course. You can see I'm black. Am I gay? You can't tell. Because unless I tell you, you can't know. So you cannot equate racial discrimination with discrimination against homosexuals because with race, it's self-revealing, but with sexual orientation, it's not. A homosexual has to tell you he's homosexual. As a Black man, I don't have to tell you. You can see that I am. 

In short, and in general, Blacks, and especially Blacks, objected to the homosexual appropriation of the Black racial struggle against discrimination. Read more about that here. 

Meanwhile, the Catholic side didn't do so well. There was shouting and crying and threats like "what would your mother think," and stuff like that. 

In short, the Catholics gave the bill's supporters, as well as the media, what they wanted: a fight, and a good one. Catholics were immediately cast as haters, bigots, homophobes, etc. And it was easy to do. 

To make matters worse, the Neocats were looking for ways to further ingratiate themselves with then-Archbishop Apuron, and one of the priest-professors at the then-Redemptoris Mater Seminary took to writing several sermons and press releases with Archbishop Apuron's name on them. 

One of these writings appeared to suggest that homosexuals should be beheaded. It's not what the writer intended, but he was stupid to even "go there." I wrote about it in a post titled DON'T GO THERE. More about the beheading fiasco can be found at KUAM. 

Meanwhile, I was calling into talk shows, writing letters to the editor, and doing what I could to distance myself from the "walk into this" stupidity that was coming from "The Hill" (the Chancery, but really RMS), while trying to engage the legislation (at great expense to my businesses and my family) without getting into the religious stuff. 

In fact, it was B.J. who inadvertently helped me do that. 

HOW B.J. HELPED ME DO THAT

The Guam Youth Congress bill was full of holes and was not holding up well. So B.J. substituted a new bill that replaced civil-unions with domestic partnerships. B.J. was actually onto something there, but I'll get to that later. 

The problem with B.J's domestic partnership bill was that it was "substituted" instead of introduced. This is technical stuff, but in short a substitute bill must be "germane" to the original. 

In my view, B.J's bill was not germane. Anyway, it gave me something to argue about other than the same-sex stuff. Eventually B.J. introduced the domestic partnership bill separately. And the debate began all over again.

By this time, "the Church" had pretty much been sidelined because of the aforesaid stupidity from The Hill, and I was the only opponent left in the ring...with B.J., which occasioned his reference to "a pissing match." 

It was pretty funny. 

I was challenging B.J.'s domestic partnership bill on procedural grounds and the media was still trying to cast me as a religious zealot. A reporter thrust a microphone into B.J.'s face and said something about what "Tim Rohr said..." B.J. replied:

"I'm not going to get into a pissing match with Tim Rohr." 

LOL. He was right. I was a nobody. Really. But the media had nobody else. So "they," the media, instead of going after something substantive, spent all their time trying to create a pissing match. 

And, given the issue, B.J.'s characterization of the same-sex issue as "a pissing match," was not only apt, it was a hilarious visual. 

HE WAS AND IS A GOOD MAN

I remember a few weeks later, B.J. walked into my Catholic bookstore and bought a book about what the Catholic Church teaches on homosexuality. I took his money and said thank you. 

I always believed and still believe that B.J. Cruz is a good man. And I really didn't like opposing him. 

We had some stuff in common. 

At almost the same age (17) both of us were sexually approached by priests, and both in California. We took different paths at that point. But I knew what it felt like. So when I heard "B.J.'s" story (as told to Ray Gibson one morning on K57), all of my memories came back to me. 

Yes, I chose a different way to respond. And to this day I still say "I won't leave Jesus because of Judas." But that doesn't take away from how B.J. responded to his "attacker," especially when he was 17 (like me).

IN THE END

In the end, B.J. withdrew his bill. He didn't have the votes. But it wasn't because of anything I did. It was because of what Joe T. San Agustin, the then-director of the GovGuam retirement fund, did. In fact "Joe T" had "did" it long before B.J. finally withdrew his bill.

Upon introduction of the first same-sex union bill, Joe T had sent a letter to the legislature setting out his concerns about how the legislation would impact the GovGuam Retirement Fund - Guam's true "sacred cow." 

It was simply math. 

Joe T's position was that there were no "actuarial tables" to project the impact of legal same-sex unions on the GovGuam Retirement Fund.

The media buried Joe T's letter for more than a year, probably because the fight with the Catholic Church was more fun than retirement fund actuarial tables. 

At long last, probably over a year after the initial drama, Joe T and Sen. Cruz had it out on Ray's show on K57. 

Joe T hammered on the math and the potential harm to the retirement fund. The argument on the radio got hot, but the next day or so, Cruz withdrew his bill. 

Up till then, poll after poll showed public support for the bill. However, once word got out how it might negatively impact the retirement fund it was a fairly sure thing that said support would go away. So in the end, it was money not morals that determined the fate of the bill.

The whole thing was a meaningless drama and a waste of time (in my hindsight view) because in 2015, a U.S. Supreme Court decision made same-sex marriage legal everywhere, and by 2016, the Archdiocese of Agana would be the scandal of the world. 

But, as mentioned earlier, Cruz was "on to something" with his domestic partnership idea. So I'll get back to that soon. 

Meanwhile, avoid pissing matches and here's hoping you all get power and water soon.

Part 2 is CAVEMAN MARRIAGE