Hawaii House approves marriage equality bill in initial vote, final vote scheduled for today

By a sizable margin, the Hawaii House approved a marriage equality bill that yesterday passed out of committee, setting up a final vote on the measure Friday.

The Friday vote will likely succeed by a similar margin to Wednesday’s 30-18 tally, and will go back to the state Senate–which overwhelmingly approved a similar bill last week–for final passage of the bill’s amendments.  (The Senate vote could happen Tuesday.)

We wrote about the changes to the bill in our piece on the House committee vote yesterday:

The most significant change to the legislation came in the form of an expanded religious exemption that will protect religious organizations–either for-profit or not-for-profit–from facing fines if they refuse to perform a same-sex couple’s wedding.

“The biggest amendment, the most important amendment, was expanding the religious exemption.” House Judiciary Committee Chair Karl Rhoads told Hawaii News Now.  “It’s based on the Connecticut language — of the states that have same-sex marriage.  Connecticut is one of the broadest exemptions.”

Another change removed a provision from the legislation that some worried would unfairly allow some children of same-sex couples to be considered Native Hawaiians.  In addition, the new effective date of the bill will be December 2, 2013.

Intriguingly, one lawmaker–Democratic Rep. Jo Jordan–said she would oppose the bill, even though it would benefit her personally because she is gay:

“No, nobody’s going to beat me up. Nobody’s going to throw me out of my (LGBT) community — I’m not quite sure of that,” Jordan said.\

But Jordan said she set aside her beliefs when she listened to five days of testimony during a joint committee hearing and listened with an open heart. Much of spoken public testimony during the hearing came in opposition to the bill.

“I might vote against something that I personally believe in. I personally believe I should have the right,” Jordan said. “You know how hard it is for me to say no? I have to say no.”

The proposed marriage equality bill would allow same-sex couples to wed in the states starting December 2.