When Act 1 was signed into law last year, supporters celebrated it as an affirmation that everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, should have equal access to the protection and benefits afforded by state government. No, civil unions do not provide everything that marriages do — no assurance of interstate recognition, no granting of federal benefits — but it was at least an assurance that Hawaii would do all it could to equalize rights for couples living in the islands.
What a shame it would be to diminish that achievement by carving out a broad exemption to at least one of the legal protections the new law provides.
That is what some proposed language in legislation moving through the state Capitol would mean.
To that point, two Senate committees, on health and on judiciary and labor, made the right move in deciding against expanding an exemption for church and religious officials who object to civil unions as a matter of their faith.
Since Act 1’s passage, though, there’s been a push to expand that exemption significantly.
Wording moving through the House would exempt religious organizations — as well as associations, societies and nonprofit groups affiliated with such organizations — from the requirement "to provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges" related to the solemnization of a civil union.
That is simply too wide an escape hatch. Church-affiliated entities have the capacity to go into business to make money. One such opportunity is the rental of properties for various occasions. Weddings and the associated events, such as receptions, are certainly among the most lucrative of those.
The existing exemption in the law is in place to protect rights of religious freedom enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, allowing church clergy and other religious officials to practice their faith as they see fit. If recognition of same-sex unions violates the precepts of a church, it’s wrong to compel its leaders to provide that recognition by hosting the ceremony and related gathering themselves.
But side groups and businesses incorporated for purposes unrelated to religion? They should be held to the state’s public accommodations laws, which preclude discrimination.
The current Senate draft of the bill rightly removes the more expansive language.
State Sen. Clayton Hee, who chairs the Judiciary and Labor Committee, correctly pointed out that the bill’s focus should remain the fixing of some technical flaws in Act 1. Those include, primarily, the elimination of a gap that now exists for couples who secured reciprocal beneficiary protections, a legal status that was created years earlier to address the inequities in rights for same-sex couples. If they now seek a civil unions license, they must first give up the earlier status, leaving them without a claim on legal protections in the interim. This needs to be fixed.
Steven Levinson, the retired state Supreme Court justice who long advocated for civil unions, underscored a major breach of fairness: The expanded exemption would effectively give commercial enterprises a way out complying with the accommodations law if a church is linked in any way.
It would be very disappointing if Hawaii’s most recent civil rights advance were allowed to disintegrate by carving out a "religious" exception that, in fact, has nothing to do with the practice of religion itself.
