For Better Or Worse

In Hawaii, a showdown over marriage tests the limits of gay activism

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But Hawaii has another tradition besides political liberalism: Christianity. Nineteenth century missionaries did a fantastic job here. Even today fully one-quarter of the residents belong to just two denominations, the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Latter-day Saints are major landowners, and Brigham Young University has a Hawaii campus.

More important, Hawaii's openly gay community remains fledgling and poorly organized. The islands aren't a paradise for openly gay people. Though the state's multiethnic complexion requires racial tolerance, it's a mistake to think that "the aloha spirit" automatically extends to openly gay people. "The bigotry is there," says Kenneth Miller, 43, a gay man who was born and reared in Hawaii and now works for a gay group. "A lot of us leave for a while, go to the mainland. Many people stay there."

In most mainland jurisdictions that have begun to recognize gay equality (usually through laws that prevent employers from firing people for being gay), the local gay community is open, savvy, well-organized. Moms and dads are told, employers are educated--gay becomes not such a foreign word. Not in Hawaii. Even Ben Cayetano, the state's Democratic Governor and a man who proudly calls himself liberal, told TIME that same-sex marriage shouldn't be legal for the same reason that "marrying your sister" isn't legal.

Most of those who run the state's powerful Democratic machine have endorsed the anti-gay marriage amendment. So how can the opposition hope to win? In a conflicted society, it must appeal to the people's sense of political liberalism over their sense of religious tradition. But their rivals, of course, are doing just the opposite. Both campaigns are reaching for the gut.

The ads for Save Traditional Marriage are unvarnished in their appeals. In the most inflammatory and demagogic one, an eight-year-old boy, the son of the group's leader, Linda Rosehill, reads aloud from Daddy's Wedding, a children's book meant to educate kids about gay relationships. In the ad, the boy (who isn't identified) looks very confused, and a voice-over says ominously, "If you don't think homosexual marriage will affect you, how do you think it will affect your children?"

The Daddy's Wedding ad enraged campaign workers on the opposing side. "Look," one said, "they're dealing with gut-level emotions--I mean, my God, insinuating that this kid is going to be harmed by us being able to marry? We've got to fight fire with fire: whack 'em back with a f______ abortion ad." They have that ad. It features a female physician looking as concerned as Rosehill's son did. "We need to stop them before they get to a woman's right to choose," the doctor says. The rather strained argument seems to be that if voters allow the legislature control over court decisions regarding marriage, foes of abortion rights could seek similar power on that issue. Polling has shown that if voters can be convinced that the amendment may lead to the end of abortion rights, they will be much less likely to support it. (Hawaii takes pride of place as the first state to legalize abortion, in 1970.)

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