Twenty years is a long time to take to acknowledge that people who are gay have the same right to legally marry as people who are straight.
With the state Senate’s final approval of a bill Tuesday and with the governor’s quick signature, Hawaii has said yes to equality and though passage of similar anti-discrimination bills had started and stuttered through two decades, the effort was easy.
Easy because logic and rational sensibilities ultimately prevail, as they have through this nation’s history. Easy because affirming equality, I believe, still runs deep through America’s soul.
Now comes the hard part.
Regardless of a court challenge of the law’s constitutionality, people who were strongly divided will have to find a way to clear away animosity, largely provoked by organized religion and their leaders who stirred fear among their congregations and misinformed them about consequences.
Their task will be to find a way to guide their fellowships toward tolerance and acceptance, if not compassion, for people with beliefs and views counter to their own. That won’t be easy, if the hostility and ill will that emerged during hearings on the bill are any indication.
The new law allows churches and religious organizations to legally discriminate, to shutter their facilities and bar pastors and priests from conducting ceremonies for gay people. Even if there is no moral basis for unjust treatment, religious groups have been granted that privilege.
Supporters of the bill are entitled to celebrate achieving a long-sought goal. Their role now is just as important in bridging the chasm. People reach points of understanding in different ways, some taking more time than others. Patience and respect will reap more rewards than continued disparagement and criticism.
The gay marriage bill chips away at the stone of inequality.
The more difficult challenge will be to assure other basic rights, such as equal opportunity for a sound education that prepares young people not only for jobs, but for dealing with the complexities of social and financial issues they will confront.
Everyone should have an equal opportunity to gain economic stability by discouraging profit as the sole goal in building housing and instead, supporting dwellings for first-time buyers and for reasonable rental units low-income workers can afford; to get away from massive, land-hungry developments that tax the infrastructure and environment, and to encourage smaller, leaner in-fill projects in accessible urban areas.
Equal opportunity means a sustainable life in which the best and highest use of land isn’t based on investor returns, but on open spaces and agriculture, on preserving ocean life and coastal ecosystems by better water-use practices and stronger pollution controls.
Equal opportunity also means promoting decent jobs that pay a living wage; dependable, non-intrusive public transportation; and adequate medical care.
While at times noisy and somewhat unnerving, public engagement on the marriage equality bill was heartening. When the not-so-special legislative session begins in January, comparable enthusiasm about equality issues as important as gay marriage would be welcome.
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Cynthia Oi can be reached at coi@staradvertiser.com.
