Gay marriage issue isn't for Massachusetts only

For a while, it was Hawai'i's time, as the issue of gay marriage swirled through our courts and our Legislature.

Now, it is Massachusetts' turn in the spotlight, with that state's Supreme Judicial Court ruling that gay couples are entitled to all the rights of marriage.

The reaction has been fierce, with the strong possibility that Massachusetts voters will approve a constitutional amendment that would effectively ban same-sex marriage.

Indeed, that is what happened here, in a slightly different form.

The tragedy in this is that the legitimate and deeply felt divisions over this issue find their way into the most basic legal document of our society, our Constitution.

That's not progress; that is going backward.

The problem is this: If civil society grants certain rights, privileges and obligations on the basis of marital status, how can it discriminate based on the gender of the people involved? We wouldn't accept this if it happened to be based on the race or religious affiliation of the individuals.

Ultimately, society may decide it wishes to get out of the business of regulating, rewarding and sanctioning marriage. That would mean the untangling of a massive web of benefits and obligations based around heterosexual marriage.

In 1995, for instance, the report of the Commission on Sexual Orientation and the Law found some 400 Hawai'i laws that bestow "intangible, substantive or general benefits" on heterosexual married couples, many focused on family relationships.

It seems unlikely that this state, or any other, will soon move to remove that huge list of benefits and obligations from the law books. Which means that courts, here and elsewhere, will continue to find, as the Massachusetts court did, that the current situation creates inequality under the law.

'Freedom to Marry Rings' image upper right © H. Mitchell.