Sad Day
As I mentioned before, I got the Turbo Fire program a couple of weeks ago. I started off on it pretty well following the prep schedule, but then I had some, um, woman trouble and fell off the workout wagon. 
But, I’m back on it and since I had taken that unscheduled break, I decided to just start the whole prep schedule over again. After this, I’m going to rewrite my schedule. I am just hoping that I won’t get so tired when it comes to that time of month again so I can actually stay on schedule.
Today was a semi historic day in Hawaii. The legislative session ended in late April and today was the Governor’s deadline to veto any bills that passed this past session. One of the bills that passed at literally the last minute was HB444 – a bill that would have allowed people to enter into civil unions since gay marriage has basically been outlawed here. However, the Governor vetoed that bill today and for some reason, the House of Representatives decided not to call a special session to override any vetoes the Governor might have sent down.
In a sense I am a little relieved that it didn’t pass simply because I do not believe that separate but equal = equal. I think everyone should have the right to enter into marriages if they choose to regardless if the person they want to get married to is of the same sex as they are. But that’s not the case here. The government decided that the people should vote on if marriage should be between a man and a woman and the people overwhelmingly voted to keep marriage between a man and a woman.
One of the reasons the Governor gave as why she vetoed the bill was that she thought that it was too important of an issue for one person to decide and that it should be a ballot measure that all of the people can vote on. As it was pointed out by someone on twitter, when has a minority rights issue ever been successfully been passed by the people? If it were up to the voters, we would probably still have slavery and women would still be considered property and not have rights. If it were up to the voters we would probably still have segregation. Sometimes government has to take a stand and say these people are a minority, you may not agree with their views or their way of living, but they are people, they are citizens and all people should be afforded the same rights as others.
I was really hoping the Governor would have allowed the bill to become law, but it is an election year. The Governor is not up for reelection, but her Lieutenant Governor is and he was opposed to the bill because the religious right equated it with same sex marriage. If you put it into context of this being an election year, vetoing the bill was also a pretty smart move for the Governor. The leading Democratic candidate is for same sex marriage and the leading Republican candidate is against it. By vetoing this bill, it is sure to become a campaign issue and I think the upcoming gubernatorial election is going to get pretty darn ugly because of this.
It’s too bad though. Hawaii has usually been seen as a pretty progressive state. I believe that we were the first state to have legalized abortion and we’re also pretty progressive in the sense that all workers are pretty much guaranteed health insurance through their employers.
This is certainly going to be an interesting election.
1 Comment July 7, 2010
