Disappeared News

Doing the right thing sounds like the appropriate action.Why does everything have to be so difficult?
 

I was one (of many) who opposed allowing opposite sex couples the option of getting civil unions. The advocates for it argued it was more "inclusive." I argued it obscured the legal point that the rights and benefits under Hawaii law of a civil union were IDENTICAL to that of marriage. Allowing "straight" couples to be able to choose between the two suggested there was a meanigful distinction and, if so, it was almost inevitable that people would conclude CUs were a second-class set of rights. (They are, SOCIALLY and under Federal law. But not under state law.)

So I find it ironic that that flaw in the bill may now lead a court to award full "marriage" equality, especially if the Governor refuses to defend that part of the law. Curiouser and curiouser.

A second irony: In my recollection -- and I am more than willing to be corrected by someone with a better memory, Senate President Colleen Hanabusa was one of the people arguing to include heterosexual couples under the law. She was also the one who, for a while, promoted the conspiracy theory that gay activists were passing a constitutionally defective civil union bill in order to expose the state to a lawsuit which would result in full marriage equality. How ironic if it is a clause SHE insisted upon which leads to the result she feared.
 

I haven't yet read the briefs in this case. Still, I find it absurd that the same AG's office will be both defending the DOH and representing the administration against the DOH. The so-called firewall doesn't exist.