Date: 	Thu, 25 Apr 1996 23:14:47 -1000
From: Mia H H Lam <mial@hawaii.edu>
Subject: APRIL 25 (fwd)



		         ONE DAY AT A TIME!!!!!!

	The House-Senate Conference committee on the issue of same gender
marriage has already met today (Thursday) to explore a "sandwich" of
a constitutional amendment with a domestic partnership bill.  They will
take the topic up again at 10:30 pm tonight.  At 9pm, the Senate had
a session.  Partisans of both sides of the issue looked down on the Senators
from the gallery, waiting for Senator Mike Liu to move that HB2366 be
pulled from the Judiciary Committee.  HB2366 is the constitutional amendment
that the House passed 37 to 14, and says that marriage is between a man and
a woman only.  Instead, Liu obtained a ruling from the Senate President
that HB2366 had enough of a fiscal impact that the Senate could still vote
on it tomorrow Friday.

	The deadline is tonight to "deck" bills with no fiscal impact,
and the deadline for all other bills is tomorrow.  So Liu breathed life
into HB2366 for one more day.

	The Senate recessed until 10pm tomorrow night.  

	Does Liu have the 9 votes (out of 25 senators) to pull HB2366 out
of judiciary committee?  Will the House and Senate Judiciary Committees
succeed in formulating a "separate and unequal" constitutional amendment that
somehow denies marriage to same gender couples but gives them "most" of
the rights, benefits, and obligations of marriage as an option?

	Come to the Senate tomorrow night, and find out!  In the meantime,
continue to contact your senators know and have your friends, families, and
colleagues to do the same!  The friendly phone calls and civil messages in
favor of same gender marriage are warmly appreciated.


						Best Regards,


						Tom Ramsey