A state Circuit Court judge on Wednesday sided with the state and threw out a House lawmaker’s legal challenge to gay marriage.

Judge Karl Sakamoto granted the state’s motion for summary judgment, declaring that the gay marriage law that took effect in December is constitutional. The judge had previously declined Rep. Bob McDermott’s requests for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to block the law.

Since December, the state has issued more than 735 marriage licenses to gay couples.

"So the Marriage Equality Act continues in force and effect. It is constitutional. It’s proper," state Attorney General David Louie told reporters.

McDermott (R, Ewa Beach-Iroquois Point) said he would appeal. He said voters believed in 1998 that they had banned gay marriage through a state constitutional amendment that gave the Legislature the power to reserve marriage to heterosexual couples.

"We will appeal it because we feel the voters were disenfranchised, and that’s outrageous. In 1998, you ask anybody — including me — they thought it was a ban," he told reporters.

Shawn Luiz, an attorney for McDermott, argued before the court that the 1998 constitutional amendment constrained the Legislature’s general powers under the state Constitution to enact laws on marriage. He said that another constitutional amendment would have to be placed before voters to change the 1998 vote.

Luiz argued that the language in the 1998 amendment said the Legislature "shall" have the power to reserve marriage to heterosexual couples, a command, as opposed to stating that the Legislature "may" have such power.

The 1998 amendment was approved in response to a state Supreme Court ruling that denying gay couples marriage licenses was a violation of equal protection. The amendment basically reasserted the Legislature’s power to define marriage.

In November, when Sakamoto denied McDermott’s request to block the gay marriage law, the judge made a careful distinction between the 1998 amendment and the Legislature’s separate power under the constitution to enact laws.

Sakamoto said at the time that the plain meaning of the 1998 amendment was to empower the Legislature to reserve marriage to heterosexual couples. The judge said the amendment — Article I, Section 23 — did not give the Legislature any expanded power to recognize gay couples.

Separately, however, the judge ruled that the Legislature has the ordinary and customary power — in Article III, Section 1 — to enact laws.

In announcing his ruling Wednesday, Sakamoto cited the legislative intent behind the 1998 amendment, which was that the definition of marriage was a fundamental policy issue that should be decided by the Legislature. Lawmakers had also made clear that they would be open to petitions to one day allow gay marriage.

"So the Legislature, in its wisdom, contemplated that as times evolve, that there is — and would be — the possibility of change occurring to the marriage laws," the judge said. "And they anticipated this."

Sakamoto concluded that the gay marriage law is legal under both the state and federal constitutions. The judge cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last June that struck down parts of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and held that legally married gay couples are entitled to federal benefits.