In broader, Western culture, although they have existed underground for centuries, they have a relatively recent history as a political issue. Early gay-rights campaigners raised the issue in the 1950s, and legal suits in pursuit of equal marriage rights for homosexuals date from the 1970s. But it was not until 1993 that an American court agreed that the denial of a marriage license to a lesbian or gay couple constituted discrimination.
That was the case behind our current drama. The Hawaii Supreme Court ruled in Baehr v. Lewin (now renamed Baehr v. Miike) that a lesbian woman, Nina Baehr, had been denied the right to marry her female partner because she was a woman. Under Hawaii's constitution, the court held, that was sex discrimination. The court sent the case back to a lower court to see whether the state could prove it had a ``compelling interest'' to sustain such discrimina-
tion. It couldn't. Its attempt to do so was refuted point by point by the lower court's Judge Kevin Chang in the ruling earlier this month. The case is now referred back to the state Supreme Court for a final ruling. But, since that court found in Baehr's favor the first time and since in the intervening years its composition has, if anything, become more favorable to Baehr's position, the die seems essentially cast.
But didn't the Defense of Marriage Act preempt the entire issue? As it turns out, no. For all of last summer's hullabaloo, the act cannot affect what happens in Hawaii. The act essentially said two things: The federal government defines marriage as between a man and a woman, and no state is obliged by the U.S. Constitution to recognize Hawaii's same-sex marriages.
