Cruz control: newly appointed Guam supreme court justice Benjamin Cruz may be the nation's highest-ranking gay judge.

Newly appointed Guam supreme court justice Benjamin Cruz may be the nation's highest-ranking gay judge

Justice Benjamin J. Cruz says he hates to turn down a request from a friend, but sometimes he can't avoid it. "A number of gay friends are trying to get me to perform marriages for them, and I tell them I can't do that," he explains. "I tell them if they can get a marriage license, then I'll do it. But until then I can't."

Cruz is fully acquainted with the rule of law. The 46-year-old Guam native, who outed himself as a gay man two years ago in a magazine article, is the U.S. territory's newest supreme court justice. "There are gay judges in the country, but none I've spoken to had come out before being appointed," Cruz says. "I'm probably the first and only openly gay [supreme court] justice across the country. I'm not sure how open the judiciary will be to that."

First tapped in 1984 by then-governor Ricardo Bordallo to be a superior court judge, his sexuality was well-known among the local Republican Party and the religious right, leading to one of the most brutal confirmation hearings the island had ever witnessed. Thirteen years later Cruz is in the position of setting the rules by which he plays. In June a different governor, Carl Gutierrez, nominated him to replace the late justice Monessa Lujan on the supreme court. On September 29, after hearings free of controversy, Cruz was unanimously confirmed to the three-member high court by Guam's judiciary committee.

Home to two of the most vital U.S. air and naval bases in the Pacific Ocean, Guam is a 210-square-mile island about 1,500 miles east of the Philippines. Its majority ethnic group is Chamorro--islanders of Asian, European, and American descent. Cruz, a Chamorro, was born in Guam in 1951, and his family moved stateside 11 years later. As a student at Claremont Men's College (now Claremont McKenna College) in California, Cruz in 1972 was instrumental in starting the school's first gay and lesbian club. That's when the handsome young man with big political aspirations first publicly acknowledged his sexuality.

"The club had decided to appeal to all the Claremont student councils for funds in order to educate everyone that gays and lesbians weren't these strange four-legged creatures," Cruz recalls. "When I appeared before one council and they asked me what my interest in this was, I told them I was one of the founders, and their jaws just dropped. I've pretty much been out since then."

Cruz resumed to Guam in 1975 and for four years served as counsel to the governor. His eyes on election to the governorship, Cruz decided to keep his sexuality "under wraps for a while" and date women. He says Guam's social and political culture maintains a "benign intolerance" of homosexuality--a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" philosophy that has allowed the island's gays and straights to coexist in peace, if not equality.

But while Cruz for years would maintain a heterosexual facade--he was even engaged to a woman from 1975 to 1980--his real identity was perhaps the worst-kept secret in Guam's tightly knit political community.

"I was pretty open. I would be seen driving in my open BMW with my handsome boy at my side," he laughs. "I used to speak at the high schools to the human sexuality classes, because it really bothered me that when they had speakers on homosexuality, they would inevitably invite only drag queens and hairdressers. Not that there was anything wrong with it, but I wanted the gay students to know they could be something else besides drag queens and hairdressers."

Cruz served as executive director of the Democratic Party of Guam from 1977 to 1983. He ultimately never ran for governor but did wage three spirited bids for a seat in the Guam senate. He attributes his defeats in all three races in large part to negative publicity over his sexuality.

In 1984 Cruz received a call from Bordallo, prodding him to accept a position on the five-member superior court. "The governor understood that the electorate had problems with my being gay," Cruz said. "Although I was his legal counsel and director of the Democratic Party, I couldn't get elected. So it was his recommendation that I come on the bench and `rehabilitate' my image."

What followed was one of the most trying periods of Cruz's career. His nomination to the bench was met with vocal opposition by the territory's Republican Party forces and rigidly conservative religious community.

"The process was so controversial, it was mentioned in USA Today," Cruz remembers. "Every Baptist on the island showed up to oppose it. There were letters to the editor of the local newspaper that quoted every section of the Bible. But while some religious fanatics opposed me, the majority of the community rallied behind my confirmation."

Cruz's appointment was narrowly confirmed by the senate, and for the next eight years he headed Guam's juvenile court. In 1995 Cruz stunned both his supporters and detractors when he publicly proclaimed his homosexuality in an issue of Latte, a Guam periodical on local culture. While he worried he might be "putting a glass ceiling over my head by granting the interview, I decided that whatever happened, happened. I had to be true to myself and the community."

His fears proved unfounded. "Ninety-nine percent of the reaction to the Latte piece was positive," he recalls. "People just came up to me and hugged me, saying I gave them hope."

In June, Cruz was called upon by Gutierrez, asking him if he'd be interested in a seat on Guam's two-year-old supreme court. "I told him that if that's what's needed to improve the administration of justice on Guam, then I'd take it. But I said I really didn't want to go through another brutal public-hearing process. I was finally assured it wasn't going to be another political circus."

Gutierrez selected Cruz on the advice of Lt. Gov. Madeleine Bordallo--the widow of the jurist's former benefactor, who died in 1990. The lieutenant governor said she never forgot the years of service Cruz provided her late husband. "I've known B.J. since he was a very young man," Bordallo says. "He worked very hard for my husband. I asked the governor to think about him when making his appointment. B.J. is very well-liked on the island. He's a good judge, a fair judge."

More than 90 people gave testimony before the judiciary committee in support of Cruz's nomination. No opposing voices were raised, and the six senators present unanimously confirmed Cruz's nomination. "I think what happened here is that he proved himself as a judge over the years," Bordallo says. "This time around people saw that his private life should be separated from his public life. He didn't have a hard time at all."

Cruz says he doesn't see any major gay issues coming before the high court soon. Guam, Cruz says, is relatively "good" regarding gay rights--the island has no sodomy laws. The hot issues of i same-sex marriage and same-sex harassment have yet to catch fire in Guam, and he doubts he'll be addressing them in the near future. But whatever the future holds for the court, he says he won't let his own preferences color his reasoning: "I play by the book."

RELATED ARTICLE: FACTS ABOUT GUAM

U.S. territory, acquired in 1898 (acquisition ratified in 1899)

Geography: West Pacific island, 1,500 miles east of the Philippines

Size: 210 square miles

Population: 149,620