Legislatures Scurrying To Ban Gay Marriages

Alarmed by efforts in Hawaii to let gays wed, several states are moving closer to banning recognition of same-sex marriages.

California’s Republican-controlled Assembly voted 41-31 on Wednesday to block the state from recognizing same-sex marriages. The bill goes next to the Senate. The debate left the Legislature’s only openly gay member teary-eyed.

“Whenever a society wants to demonize a particular group it prohibits them from marrying,” said Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, referring to laws that once barred slaves and interracial couples from marrying. Kuehl is a lesbian and former actress who played Zelda on TV’s “Dobie Gillis.”

Also Wednesday, a House committee in Washington state approved a bill to ban same-sex marriages. While the full House may approve the measure, Senate passage is unlikely and Democratic Gov. Mike Lowry has pledged a veto.

And on Thursday, a committee in Idaho’s legislature introduced a bill that would make same-sex marriages performed in another state invalid in Idaho.

Lawmakers said they introduced the bills when it became apparent that Hawaii’s courts or Legislature might make same-sex marriages legal, and thereby grant gay couples the social, legal and financial benefits afforded married heterosexuals.

“It’s like a freight train coming at us from Hawaii,” said Bob Larimer Jr. of Vancouver, director of Washington for Traditional Values.

In 1993, Hawaii’s Supreme Court agreed with three gay couples that they had been unconstitutionally denied marriage licenses in 1990. The justices said the state had to show a compelling interest to ban such marriages and sent the case back for trial in a lower court.

The lower court has scheduled arguments in the case for July 15.