Special session is good for all

The special session set by Gov. Neil Abercrombie for Oct. 28 will afford everyone the opportunity to participate.

In 2013, the Senate Judiciary and Labor Committee had 850 bills referred to it and there were only five weeks to review the bills, get community input, and publicly hear as many as possible.

By contrast, in this special session, legislators will have at least double that time to consider a single proposal.

Abercrombie released his draft legislation on Aug. 22, and legislators and the public have 10 weeks between that date and Oct. 28 to comment.

A special session is hardly a rush to judgment. The Hawaii Constitution and the Senate rules protect the public’s right to be heard.

The significant benefit of a special session is that legislators and the public can focus on one issue.

And, of course, everyone who wishes to participate may do so by testimony.

All voices will be heard.

Greed is cause of social doom

Moral decay is the road to doom, as one letter writer said.

But gay marriage is only one form of moral decay. No civilization has collapsed because of gay marriage.

Every collapsed civilization fell because of greed (among other things) — greed as evidenced by the inequitable distribution of the civilization’s wealth and resources.

Our American civilization is well on the road to collapse without any help from gay marriage.

Gay marriage is not a threat

Like many religious conservatives, Suzie Lum seems to evince basic confusion about the issue of marriage equality ("Taxes threaten religious liberty," Star-Advertiser, Letters, Sept. 26).

I currently serve on the state Democratic Executive Committee in Texas and the Texas Democratic Party recently drafted civil marriage equality language into our party platform — the first state in the South to do so.

The LGBT community is not asking for, nor is it insisting, that any church or religious organization perform or honor same-sex marriages.

On the contrary, gay and lesbian Americans only want the courts, states and federal government to recognize full civil marriage equality.

No one is threatening Lum’s religious beliefs, and she is certainly entitled to her religious beliefs, as is every American citizen.

But what she is not entitled to is to impose her religious beliefs on others who have different religious beliefs or spiritual convictions.

Why have rules if not followed?

Despite repeated public pressure for developers to follow established guidelines, the developers continue to have their way.

The Ritz-Carlton project at 2121 Kuhio Ave. is a prime example. The city’s Department of Planning and Permitting approved the project even though it is not mauka-makai oriented.

The Waikiki Area Residents Association has said that this project makes a complete mockery of the Waikiki Special District guidelines.

Public record shows that this mainland developer and his associates made contributions to elected government officials.

Did this influence the approval?

Guidelines protect the land and the public; they should be followed.

A recent letter to the editor warned about "changing the rules for condo-

minium developers from the mainland, whose shortsightedness and greed will put the final nail in the coffin of whatever beauty still exists on this island, never to be seen again."

Wind farms mar neighbor islands

Neighbor islanders don’t like wind farms covering their beautiful mountains, especially when the electricity generated is proposed to be sent to Oahu via multi-million-dollar cables.

It’s a fact that our neighbor islanders, especially on Maui, are paying the highest rates in the nation for electricity.

To send their own generated electricity to Oahu instead of reducing their own energy costs is ludicrous.

What is also worrisome is that the cost of laying these cables, which should be borne by the Hawaiian Electric Co., will be passed on to us consumers.

The profits realized from this cable will probably end up in the pockets of HECO and various political interests.