NEWTOWN, Conn. — Hawaii is on the brink of becoming the 15th state to allow same-sex couples to marry. The victory, once it comes, will have a special resonance. This is the state whose Supreme Court in 1993 first opened the door to marriage equality by declaring marriage a basic civil right, setting off a reactionary scramble that led to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, a legal bulwark against gay couples that the United States Supreme Court has partly demolished.
The Legislature met in special session last week to consider a bill that would allow same-sex marriages to begin Nov. 18. Passage would bring things full circle from the 1990s.
But you could draw a circle much bigger than that. Start in the 1820s, when the first New England missionaries arrived on the islands, burning with a zeal to save heathen souls. Hawaii is one of our oldest live-and-let-live battlegrounds, where Western views of propriety and sexual morality grappled with a contrary point of view. Hawaii was a peaceable kingdom then, with relaxed attitudes toward sin and clothing. Missionaries saw drinking, dancing, tattoos, gambling and debauchery, and countered with hymns, bolts of crisp cotton and muslin — and monogamy.
They worked fast. A missionary wife, Laura Fish Judd, wrote this in 1828: "Mr. Richards, at Lahaina, says he has united six hundred couples in a few months. It is certainly a vast improvement upon the old system of living together like brutes." Perhaps if Mrs. Judd had spoken with the brutes, she might have understood them better. Scholars have noted a deep Hawaiian tradition of tolerance and fluid sexual identity, of acceptance, toward gay people especially.
Fast forward to 2013. Hawaii is still seen as the antithesis of uptight. Business attire is floral and untucked. Aloha means hello or goodbye, your choice. The T-shirt slogan: "Hang Loose." The guitar style: slack-key. Emblematic musician: the chill Jack Johnson. Oh, yeah, and the University of Hawaii football team is called the Rainbows. Go, 'Bows!
And politically, Hawaii is bluer than blue: the State Senate has just one Republican, Sam Slom. He is the minority leader — of himself. He sits on every legislative committee, though he can't make every meeting. He strenuously opposes same-sex marriage but wasn't able to block the marriage bill from easily passing the Senate. Its chances in the Democratic-controlled House look good, too.
But on this issue, Mr. Slom is not as lonely as Hawaii's laid-back image might suggest. Hawaii's voters, in fact, overwhelmingly ratified a constitutional amendment in 1998 authorizing the Legislature to overturn the court ruling and ban same-sex marriage. Last Monday hundreds of people rallied at the State Capitol to denounce the marriage bill, far outnumbering supporters. The grumpy signs they carried said things like "1 Kane 1 Wahine" (Hawaiian for "man" and "woman") and "Let the People Decide," a call to put the issue to yet another referendum. On Thursday, a committee vote in the House was delayed as more than 5,000 people signed up to speak late into the night, many heatedly denouncing the bill. The testimony began again on Friday.
A local news outfit, Honolulu Civil Beat, said the issue is splitting the state evenly, at 44 percent on each side. The debate has an upside-down feel to it. The people wearing the rainbow leis and invoking Hawaii's heritage and the "aloha spirit" are saying: Let's please get married, in the Western tradition. The conservatives' reply: No rites for you. Go have your wedding in California. There's fluid, and then there's topsy-turvy. It's why a few years ago, when some native Hawaiians on Maui tried to close a nude beach — telling white folks, please put your clothes on — some people said: Huh?
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