Gay marriage hawaii

What You Need To Know

• If passed, House Bill 2802, Residence Draft 1, would authorize voters to decide whether to repeal Article I, Section 23 of the state Constitution, which states: “The Legislature shall contain the power to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples” 


• The question would be posed on the 2024 General Election ballot as: “Shall the state constitution be amended to repeal the legislature’s authority to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples?”


• The measure passed third reading on a 43-6 vote, with each of the chamber’s six Republican members voting in opposition and two other representatives excused


• While the Hawaii Marriage Equality Act of 2013 explicitly legalized same-sex marriage in the state, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to effectively overturn Roe v. Wade, as well as other decisions favorable to conservative interests, have raised concerns on the left that the c

  Baehr v. Miike

  Pioneering case pursuing the right to partner for same-sex couples in Hawaii
  

  Summary

  Lambda Legal entered this case seeking marriage equality as an amicus in 1993 before Hawaii’s top court. The court was the first ever to rule that excluding homosexual couples from marriage was discrimination. It sent the case back to trial court to determine whether the state could justify this discrimination. We connected as counsel and prepared for trial. In 1996 the trial judge rejected the state’s argument and agreed that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples was unjustifiable. The express appealed, while antigay forces from other states spent millions of dollars in Hawaii to support the first successful constitutional amendment specifically targeting gay relationships, which voters passed in 1998. The next year the state’s high court ruled that the constitutional amendment prevented it from affirming the lower court’s order to give marriages licenses to same-sex couples. But the Hawaii legislature passed a landmark “Reciprocal Beneficiaries” law that created some of the protections same-sex couples could not access through marriage.

  Context

  Although this case gave us
  
  

  VICE, CRIME, AND AMERICAN LAW

  Marriage laws are not federal. Each state has always been free to resolve its own laws concerning marriage. The first major legal case involving lgbtq+ marriage occurred in Hawaii in 1993. At that time the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the state could not prohibit same-sex marriages without providing a "compelling reason." Shortly after, courts in Alaska reached the same finding. The legislatures of both states responded to the courts by pushing through amendments to their express constitutions which prohibited all gay marriages. Since then 37 states have enacted a ban on same-sex attracted marriages in some build.

  In addition, congress passed the "defense of marriage act" (DOMA) in 1996. DOMA sought to fulfill two things. First, DOMA prevents the federal government from recognizing any queer marriage by defining marriage as between one bloke and one woman. This would allow that a gay couple could be married under state statute but the federal government would not recognize the existence of a marriage. Second, DOMA provides a shield allowing a express to refuse to distinguish a gay marriage from another state. Traditionally, if one is married in state X, then articulate Y
  
  

  A section of the state’s Bill of Rights still gives the Legislature the power to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples.

  Same-sex marriage has been legal in Hawaii since 2013 and legal in the U.S. since 2015. But that does not mean it is accepted by everyone, including many who last in influential positions.

  A recent coalition of local organizations that includes the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii has formed to push for repealing a section of the Hawaii Constitution they worry makes the right vulnerable to opposition. Section 23 reads, “The legislature shall possess the power to reserve marriage to opposite-sex couples.”

  The Change 23 Coalition wants to put the constitutional amendment before voters next year. The coalition says it will demonstrate that the state where the same-sex-marriage struggle began 30 years ago is still a leader in civil rights.

  In 1993, a decree by the Hawaii Supreme Court made Hawaii the first state to contemplate legal challenges to lgbtq+ marriage bans.

  If voters do as the coalition wishes, they will backwards what voters did in 1998, when more than two out of three voters approved a constitutional amendment t
  

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