Last night, in a 31-20 vote, the Hawaii House unexpectedly passed legislation extending civil unions to same sex and opposite sex couples. If signed by the moderate Republican Governor Linda Lingle, Hawaii will become “one of six states giving all the rights of marriage to same-sex couples, but without calling it marriage.” The Star Bulletin sets the scene:

The House vote came yesterday evening after an afternoon spent in caucus and marked with procedural votes that showed supporters had a 31-vote majority with 20 opposed. Thirty-four votes are needed to override a veto. When the final vote was tallied, again at 31-20, with two Republicans, Reps. Barbara Marumoto and Cynthia Thielen, joining the Democratic majority, the reaction from the packed House gallery was subdued. Supporters looked at each other; some cried. Outside, they sang “We Shall Overcome” and hugged each other.

“Martin Luther King said it best,” House Majority Leader Blake Oshiro told a local NBC affiliate after the vote, “‘The arc of history is long and once in a while you get to bend it correctly,’ and today we bent it in the right way, towards justice.”

Indeed, Hawaii has been a battleground for gay rights since the 1990s, when the Hawaii Supreme Court declared that the state “could not bar same-sex couples from marrying without violating its own equal protection statutes.” The decision, the first of its kind, led to a national backlash against gay equality and led President Clinton to sign the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. By 1998, Hawaii voters approved the nation’s first ‘defense of marriage’ constitutional amendment with 78% of the vote. It wasn’t until 2001 that the first civil union bill was introduced in the Hawaii legislature, only to pass 8 years later. The Senate did not approve the measure until earlier this year.

Nobody knows how the governor will act — the House fell three votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto — but Michael Jones makes the case for why Lingle, a fried of Sarah Palin, should sign the measure here. Lingle has until July 6th to make her decision. She could do nothing and allow the bill to come law, sign it, or veto it. The Lieutenant Governor, incidentally, is publicly opposing the measure.

As part of the Obama administration’s plan to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), the Pentagon has convened a “Working Group” that is meeting with servicemembers, chaplains, and others individuals about how to repeal the ban on gay men and women serving openly in the military. The process is going to take until at least Dec. 1, 2010, and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has said that the President is committed to letting the group complete its work before moving forward. Some members of Congress have raised the possibility of passing DADT repeal legislation this year — before the review process is complete — and delaying implementation until next year.

However, today Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) a letter (in response to an inquiry from Skelton) telling him that he doesn’t want Congress to take any action at all on DADT this year. From the letter obtained by ThinkProgress:

I believe in the strongest possible terms that the Department must, prior to any legislative action, be allowed the opportunity to conduct a thorough, objective, and systematic assessment of the impact of such a policy change; develop an attentive comprehensive implementation plan, and provide the President and the Congress with the results of this effort in order to ensure that this step is taken in the most informed and effective matter. [...]

Therefore, I strongly oppose any legislation that seeks to change this policy prior to the completion of this vital assessment process.

Gates’ moratorium on any DADT action this year is troubling. Thirteen Senate Democrats have introduced a bill to replace DADT with a new nondiscrimination policy that “prohibits discrimination against service members on the basis of their sexual orientation.” The Senate bill mirrors Rep. Patrick Murphy’s (D-PA) repeal bill in the House but goes several steps further, laying out a timeline for repeal and setting benchmarks for the Pentagon’s ongoing review of the policy.

Gates’ stance makes it significantly harder for Congress to help fulfill Obama’s pledge to repeal DADT and has some supporters of repeal questioning the Pentagon’s dedication to moving forward. Democrats in Congress will have a tougher time attracting moderate and Republican co-sponsors in light of this letter, and if Congress waits until next year — after the Pentagon review is completed — to move forward on legislation, the make-up of the legislature will be different and could again delay repeal.