The state Supreme Court will hear arguments in December on a state House lawmaker’s legal challenge to Hawaii’s marriage equality law.

A Circuit Court judge ruled in November 2013 that the law is constitutional, but state Rep. Bob McDermott (R, Ewa Beach-Iroquois Point) and other opponents of marriage equality appealed to the Supreme Court.

The court has set arguments for Dec. 18.

Attorneys for McDermott and the others have argued that the lower court ruling was an "egregious error against the majority of voters, who in 1998, voted to uphold marriage between opposite sex couples" through a constitutional amendment that gave the Legislature the power to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

Only another voter-approved constitutional amendment, the attorneys contend, can change the 1998 vote and allow gay marriage.

The marriage equality law, passed in a special session of the Legislature last year and signed by Gov. Neil Abercrombie, nullified McDermott’s House vote in 1997 to put the constitutional amendment on the ballot and the others’ votes in 1998 for the amendment, their attorneys claim.

"The voters were disenfranchised. You can’t do that. You can’t play fast and loose," said McDermott, who voted against marriage equality during the special session. "What’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong."

State Attorney General David Louie will defend the marriage equality law as constitutional.

"We are looking forward to the opportunity to appear before the Hawaii Supreme Court in this matter," Louie said in a statement. "We believe that both federal and state law clearly support the conclusion that the Marriage Equality Act of 2013 is constitutional."

In a court filing, the state questioned whether McDermott and the others have standing to bring the legal challenge. Mocking McDermott’s claim that his reputation might suffer because he misled voters about the true nature of the 1998 vote, the state said "defendants are not responsible for his mistaken understanding" of the constitutional amendment.

The others, the state argues, are seeking to overturn a policy decision by the democratically elected Legislature in favor of their own value preferences.

Even if the court determines McDermott and the others have standing, the state holds, the law should be upheld. The 1998 constitutional amendment allowed, but did not require, the state to restrict marriage to a man and a woman. The Legislature, the state maintains, has the discretion under the state Constitution to regulate marriage and exercised that discretion through the marriage equality law.

"Individual voters cannot decide what the law means for everyone, only a court can do that," the state says in its filing.

Hawaii became the 15th state — along with the District of Columbia — to legalize gay marriage last year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that legally married gay couples are entitled to federal benefits. Since then the number has grown to 32 states.

During the first six months after the law took effect in Hawaii, according to the state Department of Health, gay marriages accounted for 1,853 of the 13,505 marriages in the state, or 13.7 percent.