THE largest gay rights organisation in the United States blasted the territory of Guam’s governor yesterday for refusing to allow marriage licences to same-sex couples.

Guam attorney general Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson directed officials on Tuesday to begin processing same-sex marriage applications, which would have made Guam the first US overseas territory to recognise same-sex marriage.

But state officials, backed by the governor, refused the directive, claiming that it was not binding.

Governor Eddie Calvo merely said the public could change the law, if that was their will.

But Human Rights Campaign associate director James Perez Servino warned that Mr Calvo was “standing in the way of marriage equality.”

And even the region’s Pacific Daily News pilloried the gutless governor: “Governor Calvo needs to retake civics after he passed the buck on the attorney general’s legal memorandum on gay marriage,” it said.
“The governor’s duty is to enforce our laws, not interpret them.”