But the battle will soon shift back to the political arena, in the fight to enact a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Such an amendment could be placed on the ballot either by the Legislature or by the constitutional convention that the voters approved on Nov. 5, subject to a court challenge.
The court decision has merely given religious conservatives and other opponents of same-sex marriage fresh determination to prevail through the ballot. Their efforts helped to unseat the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, who opposed such an amendment, in the primary election, and they are certain to be out in force lobbying in the next session.
The state's high court ruled in 1993 that the legal issues were parallel to those in a 1966 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down laws against interracial marriages as being racially discriminatory. Just as miscegenation laws prohibited marriages based on racial classifications, laws against gay marriages should be regarded as unconstitutionally based on sexual classifications, the majority reasoned.
Judge Chang ruled that the state had failed to spell out a compelling reason to override that principle - as required by the Supreme Court - during a trial earlier this year. He found the state did not prove its contention that a child is best raised by his or her biological parents or a married man and woman; the state's own experts agreed that is not necessarily true. The state also failed to convince the judge that its financial condition would be damaged by allowing same-sex marriages.
In anticipation of Hawaii legalizing gay marriages, President Clinton in September signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act, authorizing states to refuse to honor gay marriages sanctified in Hawaii. That law should be of no consequence. If marriages are regarded as public acts, records or judicial proceedings, the law violates the U.S. Constitution's "full faith and credit" provision. If not, states already had the right to refuse such recognition. Some have passed laws to do so.
Hawaii Justice Steven Levinson wrote in the 1993 decision on gay marriages that, "like it or not . . . customs change with an evolving social order." That decision, and now Chang's ruling, have placed Hawaii in the vanguard of such an evolution.
The Star-Bulletin supports these decisions, on the basis that the state should not be involved in making moral judgments on sexual orientation in marriage, that homosexuals should not be subjected to official discrimination on this issue.
However, public opinion surveys have been running opposed to same-sex marriage. If the voters want to amend the state Constitution to forbid such marriages, it is their right to do so. But that could result in another legal challenge, this time to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could add years to the struggle.
Some attempts have been made in recent years in Japan to set the record straight, but have met with resistance from nationalists. The professor's prediction that the U.S. move will shock the Japanese indicates that more such efforts are needed. Even at this late date, the Japanese should learn the ugly truth.
Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor