Hawaii, the state with the second-most marriages after California, is one of the few places in the country where people are still married, even if it’s been 10 years since their last one.
But that hasn’t stopped politicians from trying to change the name of the state’s official marriage license.
A couple of years ago, then-Gov.
Ben Cayetano proposed changing the name to “Honolulu” because he believed it sounded better than “Hawaii.”
But it was vetoed by a Republican-controlled Legislature, and then-Senate President Mike Miller, a Republican, backed the idea of changing the state name to just Hawaii, and so it stuck.
The Hawaii Legislature has tried to get rid of the word marriage for years, and lawmakers have even tried to pass a bill to rename Hawaii, too, but it hasn’t gotten far.
In the last legislative session, lawmakers voted to rename the state.
But last month, a bill filed by Sen. Kiki Matsui, a Democrat from Honolulu, would make the change permanent.
The bill, which also seeks to remove the word “marriage,” calls for the name change to include the word Hawaiian.
The bill, however, is pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and it’s not clear if it’ll ever get a vote.
The Associated Press’ Mark Felsenthal and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
