I spoke with Donald L. Bentz, Treasurer of Equality Hawaii, about three hours after the veto. Bentz had been treasurer for the Human Rights Task Force in Tampa, Florida and dealt with two ballot initiatives there. He had just finished singing along to the YouTube song "Fuck You, Fuck You Very Much" at a post veto-gathering.

"Right now we're very angry. We're disappointed. The governor basically said we are second-class citizens and we do not deserve protections. That is just atrocious," Bentz said, adding that they had already heard about calls from the mainland to boycott Hawaii. According to a 2008 report by Community Marketing Inc., gays spend $64 billion in the U.S. travel market. No doubt a chunk of that change is spent in Hawaii.

But for Religious Right watchers, this was actually a very significant victory in the culture wars, one the Mormon Church, the Catholic Church and extremist evangelicals have been talking about since at least 1997. And it's not over yet. Hawaii may be about to face another religious warfare akin to what LGBTs saw in California during Prop 8 with antigay forces crying for a decision about marriage equality to be made by a "vote of the people."