Rant for Today: Hawaii Government

Gary Okino is a former Honolulu City Councilman who had been nominated to the city Ethics Board of Appeals by our previous Mayor Peter Carlisle.  There has been quite a bit of discussion about whether he should or should not have been removed from consideration because of his highly staunch religious views.  Okino has made some very harsh statements about homosexuality and his opposition to same sex marriages.

I found this report on the Honolulu Star Advertiser website:

"Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell sent a letter to the City Council today withdrawing Gary Okino’s nomination to the city Ethics Board of Appeals in the wake of a furor over comments made regarding his opinion of homosexuals.

“There is no place for discrimination of any kind in city government, and even though Mr. Okino stated he would not discriminate if he was appointed as a member of the Ethics Board of Appeals, I find his position on the gay community to be a problem,” Caldwell said in a release issued this afternoon."

And here are some quotes by Gary Okino:

"As a Christian, I strongly believe that we need a moral base in government that's unchanging -- and that's the standard set by God in the Bible," he says. "Religion -- Christianity -- has to have an integral part in government because government creates laws and laws create the environment that guides the country.

"I believe the Founding Fathers made laws that were based in Christian morality. We have to keep those standards. They have to be unchanging. Otherwise, we end up legalizing things that are illegal and doing things that are immoral."

I could not find his actual quote where it was reported that he said there could be no separation of church and state because God came first.

Did Okino forget that the settlers to what would become the United States came from Europe to escape religious persecution?  The founding fathers worked hard to create laws that would insure separation of church and state so that everyone's religion would be protected.  

There was another incident about our Hawaii State Senate bringing up a recommendation to end the Christian invocations at the start of their floor sessions.  This came about after a protestor brought forth the reminder of separation of church and state.  The Christian leaders felt there wasn't anything wrong with it.  Well, if that's the case, perhaps they should take turns or jointly have a rabbi, a Hawaiian kahuna, a Buddhist priest, a Muslim cleric, and anybody else who would like to create an atmosphere of hope and good judgement with a joint invocation?  I have no idea what the final outcome was on that case.

I'm sorry for my rant, but this has bugged me.  Hawaii is always touted as being a melting pot of cultures.  I wish our leaders would work to foster an atmosphere of inclusion, ethics and common sense.

POSTSCRIPT: (02-06-2013)  I just saw a letter in the Star Advertiser Editorial page this morning.  This is what Mr. Walter Mahr said:

..."Okino is not a public official, as Junker claims.  Okino was voted out of office and replaced by gay Blake Oshiro because his views were out of mainstream and completely at odds with public opinion."...