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Hawaii's Senate Judiciary Committee confronted two politically charged issues in its 1994 session: the legal status of same-sex marriage, following a State Supreme Court ruling in Baehr v. Lewin, and proposed restrictions on firearms. Rey Graulty, the committee's chair, and Dan Foley, a civil rights attorney representing the three couples in the case, discussed both topics with host Randy Roth. Graulty argued that the Supreme Court had misapplied the state constitution's equal protection clause and that the legislature was entitled to correct the ruling; he described a commission to study domestic partnership as the appropriate path toward consensus. Foley contended that civil rights advances for small or unpopular minorities had historically come through courts rather than legislatures and that the case remained active, with the question of compelling state interest still to be decided. On firearms, Graulty described mandatory registration of newly acquired guns and strict liability for owners as meaningful but incomplete steps, well short of the near-total handgun ban he had sought. The guests also addressed First Amendment protections for nonprofit and religious groups selling message-bearing T-shirts on Waikiki sidewalks, where competing city ordinances were under consideration.
Transcript
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