• Church has provided place to call home • Let people vote • Chickens are good • Faith should not influence senator • Don’t discriminate Church has provided place to call home Imagine how proud we are to be lesbians
• Church has provided place to call home • Let people vote • Chickens are good • Faith should not influence senator • Don’t discriminate
Church has provided place to call home
Imagine how proud we are to be lesbians and members of St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church with such a forward-thinking, justice-minded pastor as Father William Miller. Imagine even further how proud we are to have the Episcopal Diocese of Hawaii during its annual convention and Bishop Robert Fitzpatrick demonstrating unanimous support for passage of the upcoming marriage equity bill in the Hawaii Legislature.
We were so pleased to discover St. Michael and All Angels several years ago when we attended one of many concerts held there and soon realized that we had finally found a church we could call home. People, the body of the church of St. Michael’s, have always been welcoming and warm to us as individuals and as a couple.
And Father Bill Miller is a thoughtful and thought- provoking minister who actively seeks diversity in the church that he shepherds. We are so grateful to Reverend Miller and Bishop Fitzpatrick for their ongoing support and, even more importantly, for their public expression of this support with regard to equality in marriage. It comes at such a critical time in the history of the struggle for equal rights for all. God bless the both of you and all the people of our church! What a gift you have been in our lives!
Maureen Nuccio-Hiraga
Madeleine Hiraga-Nuccio
Kapaa
Let people vote
The decision on same-sex marriage should not be left to legislators. It is such an important and sensitive issue that the people of the state of Hawaii should make that decision through the power of the ballot. After all, our system of government is through the rule of the majority. Government is supposed to be by, of and for the people.
Let the over 1 million decide rather than the less than 100 legislators.
Rudy Sina
Lihue
Chickens are good
To John, who wrote about Kauai chickens not being good for Kauai:
First of all, chickens have been on Kauai for probably longer than you have. Second, they sure have been here much longer than shearwaters.
Shearwaters are not native to Kauai and chickens are hardly “invasive pests” that prey on eggs and chicks of shearwaters. Have you seen this happen? I’m pretty sure the Kilauea reserve, who protects the shearwaters, are smart enough to keep chickens out of the nesting areas, if this is even true. Third, when you speak of chickens carrying malaria, aren’t you confusing them with mosquitos, you know, those pests that are far more invasive than roosters. And excuse us Kauai locals for not making sure our “feathery friends” don’t bother you at 2 a.m., dig holes in your garden and destroy your fruit, (along with the other hundreds of actual flying, tree-nesting birds) who are hungry and have inhabited the island longer than the Princeville people have. I especially like your rude comment on the arrival of the chickens with the first Hawaiians and how they are just as invasive now as they were when they first arrived to Hawaii.
Mr. Burns, if you don’t like Kauai chickens, then you don’t belong on Kauai.
Emi Nollar
Kalaheo
Faith should not influence senator
I was not surprised to read that Sen. Ron Kouchi was going to vote against the marriage equality bill. After all, in 2011, he initially voted against civil unions and then took a walk when the bill was up for final consideration. However, I was shocked to learn that he does not support a woman’s right to choose. Sen. Kouchi says that these positions are based on “the church he belongs to.”
President John Kennedy was quoted as saying that he was a Catholic “but not a Catholic president.” Sen. Kouchi evidently believes just the opposite in spite of the fact that there are Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, atheists, and agnostics on the island, not to mention other Christian churches who do not share the beliefs of “the church he belongs to.”
In addition, I suspect that an overwhelming majority of people on Kauai support a woman’s right to choose. The very diverse population of this island deserves a senator who is more broad minded and believes in the separation of church and state.
Linda Estes
Koloa
Don’t discriminate
At the foundation of American democracy is the principle of the separation of church and state. I am saddened to see that some of our state representatives see a moral imperative based on their personal religion to thus vote that way in government. When one is a representative, their personal beliefs may be different than what’s fair for the equality of whom they represent, as Rep. Kawakami and Morikowa put so eloquently. One has no business mixing personal church beliefs with state lawmaking.
Even on a Christian moral ground basis, I ask: “What would Jesus do?” I’ve read he welcomed prostitutes and tax collectors (society’s castaways) to eat with him without judgment. Also proclaiming “do unto others”… and to what you do to the least of these, my brethren, you do unto me. Shall you be the one to cast the first stone, and discriminate against one of the least of these homosexual brothers and sisters?
There was a time when people felt morally justified calling someone of black skin 3/5 of a person, denying a woman her vote, colored people sat only in the back of the bus … all societal policies having their staunch supporters. Now, we laugh at how silly that discrimination was, and see too it was economically and spiritually punitive to those people.
Aloha spirit is to love all, and to not use one’s personal religious beliefs to harm another man, woman or child.
State delegation, I call you to go beyond the personal and be true leaders of love equality.
John Tyler Cragg
Kapaa
