HONOLULU—Religious opposition has likely defeated the same-sex civil union bill in Hawaii for the second consecutive year.

After 15,000 religious conservatives visited the state capital and contacted their representatives, a voice vote among the House members agreed to postpone the issue.

“None of us here in the state legislature are cowards,” Hawaii Democratic House Speaker Calvin Say said. “They were listening to their constituency at this point in time and the votes were not there.”

Although the Democratic support may have had the majority, it could not avoid possible veto by reaching two-thirds support. They decided to wait to put the motion to vote until they knew it could become law and until it was not an election year, like this one.

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~Emily Inverso