GUAM: First Weddings Take Place

Via the Associated Press:

There were no flowers. There was no music. The onlookers witnessing Guam's first wedding of a gay couple were mostly members of the media. "It's my privilege to officiate at this. Do you take each other to share your lives, to promise to take good care of one another for as long as you live?" Public Health Director James Gillan asked. "I do," said Deasia Johnson of Killeen, Texas. "I do," answered her bride, Nikki Dismuke of New Orleans. "By the power vested in me by the laws of Guam, I pronounce you married," Gillan said before the two military members kissed to solemnize their vows. With those words, in a ceremony that lasted less than a minute in Gillan's office, Johnson and Dismuke became the first gay couple to be legally married in a U.S. territory. Guam got that distinction Tuesday after a federal judge last week struck down the island territory's ban, saying it was unconstitutional.