"Unless something amazing happens, there will be a boycott," said Michigan state Rep. Deborah Whyman, a Republican who has talked with religious right groups. "They need to understand how we feel about this on the mainland."
"The only thing we know that we can do now is have an economic boycott," said the Rev. Lou Sheldon, chairman of the California-based Traditional Values Coalition, a conservative lobbying organization that claims some 31,000 churches as members. "If people want to go to the South Pacific, we will urge them to go to other islands."
The Hawaii debate over same-sex marriages is being followed intently across the nation. While a Circuit Court trial on the issue is scheduled for August, state lawmakers are being pressured to put a constitutional amendment banning such marriages on the November ballot, a move favored by conservatives.
Seventy-four percent of registered voters surveyed disapproved of same-sex marriage in a Star-Bulletin Poll last month.
The proposed amendment was approved by the House last month, but Senate leaders said they do not have the two-thirds vote for it to pass and saw no reason to hold a hearing. Today is the deadline for the measure to pass the committee and move in the Senate if it is to stay alive.
Phil Burress, coordinator of the National Campaign to Protect Marriage, a coalition of pro-family and conservative Christian groups created to oppose same-sex marriages, said unless Hawaii voters are given the chance to decide the issue, support for a boycott will mushroom.
"Once the word gets out that this was not the will of the people but heavy-handed politics, this thing could take off," said Burress. "I still don't think a boycott is the way to go, but it might be impossible to stop."
If conservative Christian groups push the boycott, Burress said, "Hawaii may never be the same again."
The effect of a boycott on Hawaii's $10 billion-a-year tourism industry is difficult to predict. The Christian groups insist it could be dramatic and point to the success of previous economic boycotts, such as a campaign a half-dozen years ago to get 7-Eleven to stop selling adult magazines.
"We have disposable income to spend on vacations and we have alternatives," said Whyman. "People would be urged to go to California or Mexico or the Virgin Islands."
But others say a chain of stores is easier to target than an entire state, especially one with a reputation as a vacation paradise.
"I don't think it's a serious threat," said Sky Johnson of the Los Angeles-based Freedom to Marry Coalition of civil rights and gay groups that supports homosexual marriages. "A boycott of a whole state - especially one as attractive as Hawaii - wouldn't be effective."
Gay rights' groups called for a boycott of Colorado after voters there approved an anti-homosexual-rights initiative. Observers agree that boycott has not been particularly effective.
Any boycott in Hawaii, moreover, could be more than offset by a surge in tourism from gay couples traveling to the islands to get married and honeymoon.
A May 1995 article in the Southern California Law Review concluded that Hawaii, if it becomes the first state to legalize homosexual marriages, could gain $4.2 billion in tourism revenue over a 20-year period. "This increased tourism revenue could in turn rebound to the benefit of all the state's citizens," the article stated, creating jobs and pouring hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues into state coffers.
In Hawaii, tourist industry leaders are keeping a wary eye on the boycott threats.
The Hawaii Visitors Bureau has declined to comment on the question. "It's still a legal as well as a social issue," explained spokeswoman Gail Chew.
Murray Towill, president of the Hawaii Hotel Association, noted that both sides in the debate have threatened a boycott if they did not get their way.
"I hesitate to say a boycott will not be a big deal and I hesitate to say it would be catastrophic. There's no indication either way," said Towill. "It's something we're watching."
Richard Kelley, chairman of Outrigger Enterprises, noted that even if the Legislature does not put the question to voters this year, "there's always next year."
"Any loss of business is not good," Kelley said. "On the other hand, these things sort of work themselves out over a period of time."
Opponents of gay marriages say word of a boycott would be spread through their network of churches and through "pro-family" organizations.