Part of the LGBT rights series |
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Same-sex marriage has been legal in Hawaii since December 2, 2013. The Hawaii State Legislature held a special session beginning on October 28, 2013, and passed the Hawaii Marriage Equality Act legalizing same-sex marriage. Governor Neil Abercrombie signed the legislation on November 13, and same-sex couples began marrying on December 2. Hawaii also allows both same-sex and opposite-sex couples to formalize their relationships legally in the form of civil unions and reciprocal beneficiary relationships. Civil unions provide the same rights, benefits, and obligations of marriage at the state level, while reciprocal beneficiary relationships provide a more limited set of rights. Hawaii was the fifteenth U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage.
Hawaii's denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples was first challenged in state court in 1991, and the plaintiffs initially met with some success. In 1993, a ruling by the Hawaiian Supreme Court made Hawaii the first state in the United States to consider legal challenges to bans on same-sex marriage.[1] However, Hawaii voters later modified the State Constitution in 1998 to allow the State Legislature to restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples. By the time the Supreme Court of Hawaii considered the final appeal in the case in 1999, it upheld the state's ban on same-sex marriage.
When Hawaii's civil union law took effect at the start of 2012, same-sex marriages established in other jurisdictions were considered civil unions in Hawaii.
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