Hawaii passes gay marriage bill, governor to sign today

Gay marriages will begin in Hawaii on December 2, 2013.

The Hawaii state Senate has just passed legislation legalizing the marriages of gay couples in that state, and Democratic Governor Abercrombie says he will sign the legislation today.

The legislation goes into effect on December 2, so hopefully the marriages will begin on that date.

Man, I’m getting dizzy.

Hawaii will be the 15th state to recognize the marriages of gay couples.

Illinois, which just last week passed legislation recognizing gay marriages, won’t see marriages begin in that state until next June, 2014.  That means that even though Illinois passed the legislation before Hawaii, Hawaii will come before Illinois in the ranking of states that now recognize gay unions.  So, unless some other state surprises us before next June, Illinois will be the 16th state to recognize our marriages.

The other states that have legalized gay marriage include:

California, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington state.  The District of Columbia, which isn’t a state, is also on the list.

Outside of the US, the following countries have legalize gay marriage:

Sixteen countries now have the freedom to marry for same-sex couples nationwide (Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina, Denmark, France, Brazil, Uruguay, and New Zealand – plus Britain [England and Wales], which has passed a law that has not yet taken effect), while two others have regional or court-directed provisions enabling same-sex couples to share in the freedom to marry (Mexico and the United States). Many other countries provide some protections for such couples. As more and more countries and parts of the United States win the freedom to marry, we see that families are helped, and communities and countries made stronger, by protecting all loving committed couples.

I even saw a gay wedding taking place in the park by my place in DC the other weekend. The couple was getting those goofily adorable photos taken of them staring into each other’s eyes while the bridal party and guests waited in the distance. They even had bridesmaids with those horrible blue/green dresses! (I had really hoped the one thing we gays wouldn’t emulate would be the bad dresses, but alas.)

The world’s a-changing.