Baehr v. Miike

[2] On December 17, 1990, three same-sex couples applied for marriage licenses at the Hawaii Department of Health with the encouragement of local gay rights activist William E.

Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund had declined to represent them as it debated the importance of marriage itself and whether taking the issue to court was a wise strategy.

On May 5, 1993 (with clarification issued on May 27), the Supreme Court split in a 2-1-2 decision to remand the case to the trial court to determine if the state could meet that standard by demonstrating that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples "furthers compelling state interests and is narrowly drawn to avoid unnecessary abridgments of constitutional rights.

Hawaii put forth five state interests it claimed were sufficiently "compelling" to allow it to bar same-sex couples from marrying.

On December 3, 1996, Judge Chang ruled that the state had not established any compelling interest in denying same-sex couples the ability to marry and that, even if it had, it failed to prove that the Hawaii statute was narrowly tailored to avoid unnecessary abridgement of constitutional rights.

[9] The following day Chang stayed his ruling, acknowledging the "legally untenable" position couples would be in should the Supreme Court reverse him on appeal.

[13] As Congress considered passing DOMA, the House Judiciary Committee's Report on the legislation in 1996 discussed the implications of the Baehr case at length and argued for passage because "a redefinition of marriage in Hawaii to include homosexual couples could make such couples eligible for a whole range of federal rights and benefits."