Gays Rejoice, But Marriages On Hold Hawaii Wins Stay Until State Court Rules On Same-Sex Marriage

They can’t pack for their honeymoons - yet. But with a Hawaii judge’s historic decision legalizing same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian couples heading to the island state feel bound for sacred ground.

“I think it will feel as if I’m standing on the soil of a state that actually gets it, that lesbian and gay families should be supported, not feared or isolated,” said Kate Kendell, a gay rights lawyer in San Francisco, rejoicing about Tuesday’s landmark ruling.

Kendell, legal director of the National Center on Lesbian Rights, flies to Hawaii Saturday for a working vacation with her partner, Sandy, and their 6-month-old son, Julian. “It’s actually much the same feeling I had when I moved to San Francisco from Utah,” she said.

In the first such ruling in U.S. history, state Circuit Court Judge Kevin Chang said Tuesday that denying marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples was a violation of the Hawaii constitution, which prohibits sex discrimination.

On Wednesday, Hawaii’s attorney general won a stay blocking any same-sex marriages until the Hawaii Supreme Court decides the case in about a year.

In a strongly worded decision, Chang said Hawaii had failed, in a nine-day trial in September, to prove that it had a compelling state interest to justify its prohibition against same-sex marriages. He ordered the state Health Department to stop refusing to issue licenses to gays and lesbians.

“We got everything we asked for,” said Dan Foley, attorney for three couples who sued in 1991 after they were refused marriage licenses. “We got 100 percent.”

Foley said several gay and lesbian couples had sped to the Health Department right after Chang’s order came down, but their requests for marriage licenses were rejected.

“The law does not discriminate on the basis of sex. It makes distinctions on the basis of sexual orientation, not sex,” said Deputy Attorney General Rich Eichor. “Nothing in the constitution prohibits such distinctions.”

Still, the ruling brought gays and lesbians one step closer to marrying.

Ninia Baehr and Genora Dancel, one of the three suing couples, said they had been prepared for the worst.

“I thought I would cry if there was a bad decision,” said Baehr, “but I even cried with a good decision - because it was just so big, so great.”

The couple now live in Baltimore, but they said they planned to return to Hawaii to get married.

In San Francisco, Deborah Oakley-Melvin and Denise Ratliff found new reasons to be happy that they were bound for their native Hawaii for the holidays.

The couple, both 43 and publishers of a lesbian newspaper, have taken part in two “political marriages” - a mass ceremony at the 1993 gay march on Washington, D.C., and at San Francisco’s first public domestic partners ceremony last spring. While both were emotional and meaningful moments, their union still remained less than equal to marriage, Oakley-Melvin said.

“I’m looking forward to a real wedding,” she said.

Opponents, meanwhile, stepped up their drive to outlaw same-sex marriage.

Robert Knight, director of cultural studies at the Family Research Council, said Chang should be removed from office.

“This is part of a continuing pattern in America in which activist judges with a sweep of the pen overturn laws and initiatives that have the support of the people,” Knight said. “It’s judicial arrogance and tyranny.”