An openly lesbian activist and a Hawaiian, Gomes wrestles with balancing the boost in tourism same-sex weddings might bring, with the rights of her native people.

"Tourists come over here and they want the hula girls and want to be waited on by natives and leave here without knowing about the natives or the homeless," said Gomes, director of Kua'ana Student Services at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Gomes finds herself on the periphery of two groups, and although both have been oppressed, she says, they still have to find common ground among themselves.

"If it's not racism and classism in the gay community," she said, "It's homophobia in the Hawaiian community."

She is disturbed by an increase in advertisements in gay and lesbian publications and on the Internet promoting travel to Hawaii. A royal Polynesian wedding package on Iolani Palace grounds, touted one ad she recalled seeing.

"The gay community now has the potential of recolonizing Hawaii. I don't want to see that happen, just as much as I don't want to see Hawaiians become oppressors of the gay community."

As co-founder of Na Mamo O Hawaii, formed in 1993 to merge the goals of gay liberation and Hawaiian sovereignty, Gomes said the gay community must find ways to give back to the Hawaiian community when its members come here as tourists.

Still, gay and lesbian weddings are a long time coming, and Gomes wants the community to feel welcome in Hawaii.

"The difference is civil rights and normalizing who you are," Gomes said. "After the Civil Rights movement, a lot of blacks traveled to the South. The gay people want to come to a place that recognizes their equality."