US: Hawaii House to hear fifth day of equal marriage testimony in ‘unprecendented’ hearing

The House Judiciary and Finance Committee will on Tuesday hear a fifth day of testimony around a bill to legalise equal marriage.

Testimony will resume at 10am on Tuesday 5 November, in what representatives have called an “unprecedented” hearing, at which over 5,000 people signed up to speak.

The Senate last week passed the bill, and last Thursday it went to the House to begin testimony. The House allowed anybody to sign up, and vowed to hear testimony from everybody who did.

The bill was taken to the Hawaii House on Thursday and Friday, where more than 5,000 members of the public signed up to speak before two committees. Testimony went on until 11pm on Saturday, and over 41 hours of evidence was heard.

There were reports of suspicious activity at Saturday night’s hearing, however, and officials were forced to change procedure after some had taken other people’s numbers in order to speak twice. 

Democrats in the House have said that the split between those opposed and those in favour of equal marriage was even.

President Barack Obama, who was recently named “hero of Russia’s gay rights movement” by The Moscow Times, has shown his support for the Marriage Equality Act, calling it a matter of “dignity and respect.”

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