FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 3, 1999

Hawaii Supreme Court Ends Long-Standing Marriage Case

(Boston, MAssachusetts)  The Hawaii Supreme Court has dismissed as moot the case in which three same-sex couples had sought marriage licenses from the State.  Its decision was based on a November, 1998, referendum in which Hawaii voters approved a ballot measure authorizing the state Legislature to restrict marriage to men and women only. This ruling ends the litigation which had been pending between the State and these three couples since 1991.

    According to Mary Bonauto, an attorney at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, which filed a friend of the court brief in the Hawaii case, “We will always be grateful to the people of Hawaii for putting the marriage issue on the table.  We will always be grateful to the courts which understood there is no legitimate reason for excluding from marriage those same-sex couples who are willing to undertake the commitment to marry. Yesterday’s decision boils down to the court’s believing that its hands were tied by the 1998 election results.  But this is a long-term civil rights struggle.  To paraphrase Winston Churchill, ‘we are at the end of the beginning’.”

  Before the November election, the couples won several preliminary legal victories, including a 1993 decision from the state high court ruling that the State’s refusal to issue licenses to same-sex couples was sex discrimination which had to be justified by the state at trial.  After just such a trial, in December, 1996, a circuit (trial) court ruled that the state had no legitimate reason, let alone a compelling reason, for refusing to issue licenses to same-sex couples.  The circuit court judge stayed his ruling to allow an appeal to the Hawaii Supreme Court.
While the case was pending, the legislature agreed to send the ballot measure out to a voter referendum and also approved of a “reciprocal beneficiaries” law purporting to give unmarried people in close relationships more legal protections.

  Yesterday’s decision also contained language which may favor gay men and lesbians in future legal proceedings.  Responding to the one justice who thought the 1993 Baehr case had been wrongly decided, the other 4 members of the court stated that, except in the area of marriage, discrimination based on sexual orientation is extremely disfavored under the state constitution and is subject to the same level of judicial scrutiny which is applied to racial classifications.

  Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders is New England’s public interest legal organization seeking equal justice under law for gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and people with HIV and AIDS.