The Supreme Court will likely issue a ruling on same-sex marriage before the end of June, but that ETA was too long to wait for one couple.
Loretta Pangelinan and Kathleen Aguero of Guam, both 28-years-old, filed a lawsuit back in April after they were denied a marriage license. On Friday, a federal judge ruled in their favor, striking down the island territory's ban on same-sex marriage, The Guardian reports.
The decision makes Guam the first U.S. territory to allow same-sex marriage, ahead of Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Marianas Islands.
Same-sex Guamanian couples will be able to apply for marriage licenses starting Tuesday morning, and, according to the Pacific Daily News, Pangelinan and Aguero plan to be among the first in line.
"It's a battle we shouldn't have had to fight," Aguero told the PDN. "I mean, it's love and love must win, so we're grateful."
With tears in her eyes, Pangelinan shared a hopeful message with PDN reporters: "Regardless of everything that anybody says or what they believe, just keep your head up and keep your nose high and just have respect for one another."
Although Gov. Eddie Calvo had said that ruling on same-sex marriage ahead of the Supreme Court was "impractical," the Associated Press reports that he will not try to block U.S. district chief court judge Frances M. Tydingco-Gatewood's ruling.
"I have a solemn duty to uphold the law," he said in a news release Friday morning.
Bad at filling out bios seeks same.