Interesting how homophobia is becoming a luxury that Hawai’i can ill afford. And we, the taxpayers, will be paying the bill. Employers and the state and the county are still allowing Aloha United Way to solicit their employees when Aloha
Interesting how homophobia is becoming a luxury that Hawai’i can ill afford.
And we, the taxpayers, will be paying the bill.
Employers and the state and
the county are still allowing Aloha United Way to solicit their employees when
Aloha United Way has not disavowed its ties to the Boy Scouts, who have
asserted their right to discriminate against gays. So gay and lesbian employees
are put in the position of being asked – at work, no less – to contribute to a
private organization that has claimed the right to discriminate against gays.
This will certainly lead eventually to yet another lawsuit in which the state
and counties are on the losing side.
The Gabbards and their pals are still
campaigning for hate in the state Board of Education race. Their latest
objective is to pressure the school board into depriving gay students of the
protection they need in order to take advantage of the education they are
entitled to for their parents’ tax dollars.
Educators and members of those
churches who truly care about the rights of these kids will be gathering on
Kaua’i at Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School in Puhi today at 4:30 p.m. for a
BOE meeting. Our mahu kids need help from the community. They need responsible
adult voices to speak out against politically inspired hatred.
The board
is gathering on Kaua’i to vote on proposed harassment regulations which will
determine whether or not these kids have a right to be protected from the
horrible abuse that interferes with their constitutional right to go about
their studies unimpeded by the prejudices fanned by the right-wing
churches.
Board president Mitsugi Nakashima has been a voice of conscience
in consistently trying to take the high road and protect these children. He has
a hard race this time as a result. Hopefully, people of conscience on Kaua’i
will turn out to support him.
Do we have to wait for the state to be sued
by one of these poor kids before we can do the right thing? I hope not. Where
is the attorney general on these issues? Who is watching out for the taxpayers?
Or are our pockets assumed to be bottomless?
Kaua’i has been lucky enough
to have been mostly spared the horror of anti-gay hate crimes. So far. We are
truly blessed in this regard, given the number of fundamentalist churches on
this island that are actively involved in spreading the word of Pat Robertson –
especially now, at election time, with their distribution of illegal voter
guides that violate their tax-exempt status.
They will urge you to vote for
George W. Bush for many reasons, among them that he will fight against equal
rights for gay and lesbian people, and that he will fight against hate-crime
laws as he did in Texas, where a black man named Bird was dragged to his death
behind a pickup truck by white racists. They will downplay the facts of Bush’s
huge tax giveaway to 1 percent of the richest folks in the country at your
expense.
The Gabbards and their friends are costing us money in other ways.
At a gathering in Honolulu, I heard the head of a software company declare that
Hawai’i will never attract the high-tech companies it wants until it rids
itself of its ugly homophobic reputation.
Innovative companies don’t
subscribe to old prejudices, as they must get the best people for the money,
and discrimination only holds them back from the high performance they need to
achieve. Only places like Hawai’i can afford to institutionalize
discrimination.
Would Pat Robertson say Hawai’i is being punished for our
sins of predudice with a continuing substandard economy?
Liz Randol is
a resident of Kauai’s North Shore area.
