Hawaii recognized 13 same-sex couples as having legal civil unions as of Tuesday, and an additional 69 couples have applied for civil union licenses to have similar ceremonies performed within 30 days, the state Health Department said.

At least six of the 13 couples had their civil union ceremonies performed when they became legal in the islands just after midnight Sunday, department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said, and there could have been others.

"We are happy that a lot of couples did their applications online," Okubo said. "That streamlines the process."

In all, the department received 210 online applications from Jan. 1 to Tuesday for both civil unions and traditional marriage licenses, Okubo said.

Most of the applications were for traditional marriage licenses, Okubo said.

But for 13 same-sex couples, Okubo said, "they have completed their ceremonies and have gone through the entire process and now have a legal document to prove their civil union."

The majority of the civil union applications — 50 — came from Oahu.

Martin and Harald Kerschbaumer, both 43, were 45 minutes late for their civil union ceremony Tuesday morning because of problems that state-certified agents had getting online at the department’s Punchbowl Street office.

Martin and Harald showed up at the department at 7 a.m. and waited in line with a handful of other couples seeking marriage or civil union licenses.

"It took them two hours to get the computer running, and we had to put our wedding on hold," Martin said just after the couple’s ceremony near the eternal flame by the state Capitol. "It was frustrating because the reverend came half an hour early and we knew (10) people were waiting for us."

Okubo said the agents, who are paid out of the fees that couples pay for their licenses, had trouble logging on to the computer system and entering the couples’ data.

While couples could apply online for a civil union license as of 12:01 a.m. Sunday, Tuesday represented the first day that couples could come to the department to apply in person.

The four or five couples who had trouble Tuesday morning were all processed by 9 a.m. by state registrar Alvin Onaka, who helped them at a different computer at the department, Okubo said.

"While our electronic system does make things smoother and faster, we don’t guarantee issuing a licence within a few minutes," Okubo said. "That’s why a couple is allotted 30 days to conduct their ceremony. It does become a challenge when someone plans their ceremony within an hour or two of receiving their license."

Timothy Earhart, president of Dignity Honolulu, a branch of a national organization of gay Catholics, said he saw three same-sex couples turned away at the department just after he showed up at 7:45 a.m.

Earhart had registered with the department on Sunday to officiate civil union ceremonies but went down to the department when it opened because he still could not print out his certificate.

"They had a big snafu with their computers," Earhart said. "Three couples seeking their civil union licenses had to be turned away because they (Health Department employees) couldn’t get the terminals to work properly. Opposite-sex couples couldn’t get their traditional marriage licenses, either."

But Okubo repeated that all of the couples eventually got their license applications processed.