• Learn to love one another • Hack job • Just a piece of paper • Responsibility stops with the individual • Clearing the air Learn to love one another The real issue at hand concerning HB444 is equal rights
• Learn to love one another • Hack job • Just a piece of paper • Responsibility stops with the individual • Clearing the air
Learn to love one another
The real issue at hand concerning HB444 is equal rights for everyone.
Homosexuals pay the same taxes as everyone else. I’m sure you know someone, it may be a friend, a family member, a neighbor or a co-worker who is homosexual. Would you have the guts to look them in the eye and tell them they don’t deserve to have the same rights as heterosexuals? Is this an issue that so divides us?
Gay people don’t choose to be gay; they are born that way. And I think they should be able to love and live and have the same benefits just like a straight person does. Should a person born with one arm not be allowed to play baseball?
If you witnessed a gay man being beaten what would you do? Walk away and do nothing because he’s gay, or call 911? Would you call 911 if a child was being beaten? What about a gay child?
The issue is everyone having the same rights whether you are gay or straight, homeless or rich, black, white, purple or yellow. Some states allow gay marriage, and some allow civil unions. Isn’t this the so-called “United States?” Why is it okay for some and not for all? Equal opportunity pertains to everyone, and not just a few. Let’s keep to the real issue which is equal rights!
We will never agree on everything and that is true. We must learn to love one another especially when we disagree.
Jade Kolo, Kapa‘a
Hack job
It’s sickening to see what is happening to Kaua‘i’s beautiful drive to the North Shore.
Trimming away some of the trees which are leaning too far onto the highway is one thing — stripping and hacking and leaving a forest of stumps is quite another.
Today, I drove past a sign that has been there for years: “Watch for Falling Rocks.” That area has now been completely cleared of trees. I think the sign should be changed to, “Watch for a Lot More Falling Rocks Now that We’ve Destroyed the Tree Coverage.”
Please. Stop, already. Please don’t continue to devastate the entire length of the road. It’s so sad to see the beauty turned into an insensitive, artless, hack job; and the area is even more dangerous than before with so much less protection from rock and dirt slides.
Toni Morath, Princeville
Just a piece of paper
My Oxford Dictionary Thesaurus defines marriage as a “legal union between a man and woman.”
America went through a civil war, what’s civil about a war? What’s civil about a union?
Many heterosexual couples live together without ever getting married, I did it four times. If I would had been legally married any of those times, it would had been a real financial mess to go through divorce.
The majority of marriages end in divorce, why is the gay community wanting to adopt the straight institution of marriage and civil unions with all its flaws, laws and rules?
Even traditional marriage has prenuptial agreements set up in case of divorce.
If it ain’t broke, why fix it? I say to the gay community, be happy living together and if you truly love your spouse go see an attorney and write up a living will of what you wish in the event of sickness or death.
If you’re truly in love, who cares about a piece of paper anyway?
James “Kimo” Rosen, Kapa‘a
Responsibility stops with the individual
My heart goes out to the family that lost its husband and father to an accident at Kipu Falls.
However, I do not see that tragedy as a reason to “close the falls” any more than a tragedy at Queen’s Bath is reason to limit access to that area.
Kaua‘i is a place of great natural beauty. With the natural setting, come the natural dangers. The sea is not “user friendly” for every visitor, at every inviting vista; nor is the Kalalau Trail or any number of other scenic wonders.
Kipu Falls is not a controlled concession, monitored by owners and operators and inspectors. Its dangers are obvious to any reasonable adult.
On our last trip to the island, eight of us went to these falls, which several had visited before. Our ages ranged from 16 to 58. The 16-year-old went off, one of the 20-somethings didn’t, three of the “oldsters” swung out, and two of us chose not to. I recognized that I had a chance of getting hurt; others took the calculated risk, some more than once.
We made these individual choices; and no guide book or happily leaping “locals” persuaded some of us to act beyond our own instincts and self-knowledge.
We come to the islands every year. We see people hurt on the Kalalau Trail almost every trip, and one of these years, my body will tell me I can’t do it again. We read about tourists being swept into the ocean while taking pictures. Each of these events is an appalling tragedy that results in grief that one can only imagine.
However, when the event stems from the assumption of risk in an open and obvious hazard — such as leaping or swinging off a 20-foot cliff — the sorrow remains, but the responsibility stops with the individual.
Suzan Brooks, Des Moines, Iowa
Clearing the air
Thank you, Lori Miller of Kaua‘i Hospice, Renae Hamilton of Kaua‘i’s YWCA and D.Q. Jackson of Malama Pono for your highly educational, lucid statement (“Ending stigma,” Letters, Jan. 28) about the dangers of stigma, which stems largely from misinformation.
Your letter came at a crucial time, as the public reads the volley of letters surrounding House Bill HB444.
Thank you for clearing the air.
Maria C Snyder, Kapa‘a
