Nineteenth century missionaries did a fantastic job here. The Latter-day Saints are major landowners, and Brigham Young University has a Hawaii campus. More important, Hawaii's openly gay community remains fledgling and poorly organized. The islands aren't a paradise for openly gay people. A lot of us leave for a while, go to the mainland.
Many people stay there.
Not in Hawaii. Most of those who run the state's powerful Democratic machine have endorsed the anti-gay marriage amendment. In a conflicted society, it must appeal to the people's sense of political liberalism over their sense of religious tradition. But their rivals, of course, are doing just the opposite. Both campaigns are reaching for the gut.