HYPER LOCAL
Hey, remember Wailea 670? Well, it’s back (actually it never went away), though now it’s called Honua’ula. A draft EIS on the infamous South Maui development is out, and public comments are being accepted through June 7. You can read the document (fair warning: it gives War and Peace a run for its money, voluminous-wise) here: www.bit.ly/da7TN8 (URL shortened via bitly.com). For info on how and where to send comments, contact the County Planning Department (270-7735)…. Belated congrats to Maui author Wayne Moniz, who won the Honolulu Advertiser’s Readers’ Choice Award for Under Maui Skies, a collection of poems and short stories. We profiled Moniz, who worked for years as a public school teacher, last July and asked him to offer advice to the next generation of Maui writers. “I would always tell my students, it’s up to you guys to continue it,” he said. “I don’t have the time in my life to tell all these stories; they’re lining up like soldiers in a parade. In the book, I write about seven locales, but there’s no Hana story, for example. There are so many great stories waiting to be told.”…
LOCAL
As the civil union bill awaits Gov. Lingle’s signature (this week she told the AP her decision is “up in the air”), those for and against are lobbying hard. On the “against” side is the Hawaii Family Forum (HFF) (“family” being, as ever, code for “Christian”). On its Web site, HFF links to an October 2008 article by a guy named Brian Camenker titled “What same-sex ‘marriage’ has done to Massachusetts.” Though littered with factual misrepresentations (nominal increases in funding for HIV/AIDS and domestic violence prevention are cited as proof of homosexual depravity) and bursting with thinly veiled bigotry, the piece is at least an attempt to justify the oft-repeated claim that allowing gay unions will somehow undermine “traditional” marriage and unravel the moral fabric of society. Here’s the dramatic conclusion: “Homosexual ‘marriage’ hangs over society like a hammer with the force of law. And it’s only just begun. It’s pretty clear that the homosexual movement’s obsession with marriage is not because large numbers of them actually want to marry each other. Research shows that homosexual relationships are fundamentally dysfunctional on many levels, and ‘marriage’ as we know it isn’t something they can achieve, or even desire [Huh?!]…. This is about putting the legal stamp of approval on homosexuality and imposing it with force throughout the various social and political institutions of a society that would never accept it otherwise. To the rest of America: You’ve been forewarned.” That quote reminded me so much of George Wallace’s old anti-segregation screeds that I decided to dig one up for comparison. Instead, I found a different Wallace quote. It’s from 1982, when the notion that blacks and whites deserved equal rights had gone from controversial to assumed. “I did stand, with a majority of the white people, for the separation of the schools,” Wallace told the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “But that was wrong, and that will never come back again.”…
NOT LOCAL
Sometimes it’s important to remember what we’re up against: Alabama, like Hawaii, is in the process of electing a new Governor. The frontrunner in the Republican primary is Bradley Byrne. As reported in the Huffington Post, the True Republican PAC (man, I bet they throw a mean party) is running an attack ad against Byrne. But not your average, tax-and-spend-liberal attack ad, the kind Charles Djou is running against Ed Case and Colleen Hanabusa. No, this is an extra-crispy, Bible Belt special. “On the school board, Byrne supported teaching evolution,” says the voiceover guy, who sounds suspiciously like Barney Fife. “[He] said evolution best explains the origin of life. He even recently said the Bible is only partially true.” Here’s Byrne’s response, posted May 4 on his campaign Web site: “As a Christian and as a public servant, I have never wavered in my belief that this world and everything in it is a masterpiece created by the hands of God. As a member of the Alabama Board of Education, the record clearly shows that I fought to ensure the teaching of creationism in our school text books.” And here I was worried there might actually be a rational Republican in Alalbama.
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