Let’s move past divisive debate

Our state’s regrettably divisive struggle over marriage equality has been settled through landmark legislation that rectifies past injustices denying a minority of our population full legal recognition without depriving the majority of a single right they’ve long enjoyed.

We’re all in this together. Our task now is to find common ground and heal by uniting in basic human decency. We must strive to respect every individual’s dignity and right to hold his or her personal beliefs, values and opinions, no matter how much they differ from our own. Doing so brings out our better angels and makes our community stronger. We’ve nothing to fear but our judgments.

Once we drop our judgments, accepting and respecting others despite our differences isn’t hard to do. As the Master Counselor instructed, we need simply “love one another,” exactly as we are without trying to change anybody. Love is about accepting people and not judging them.

Michael Ra Bouchard
Hilo

Same-sex issue affects schools

I felt utter disgust after reading the letter to the editor penned by state Reps. Roy Takumi and Karl Rhoads (“Marriage equality law won’t affect schools,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Nov. 24).

For one, both must know that it is the same-sex marriage public policy that will affect our schools more than any provision of law. To even suggest otherwise is insulting and disingenuous.

Second, where was Takumi when the mainland Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) arrived in our schools? Is he now fighting for us to remove them for “attempting to influence decisions affecting our communities and keiki”? What about “Pono Choices”? Isn’t this a local curriculum?

Finally, what does Rhoads tell the thousands of parents when they ask him why he did nothing to protect their children? We watched the public hearings and remembered what he said, “There will be no change in the DOE curriculum because of SB1.”

Yeah, right.

Susan Okamura
Mililani

Letter writers ignore key facts

One letter called for Medicare for all to replace Obamacare, while ignoring the $40 trillion-plus of unfunded liability with our current Medicare system.

Another complained about a representative not voting on same-sex marriage during the special session, but ignored that the entire public, unlike 1998, was denied a vote.

Another decried the city’s cruel treatment of the homeless, but ignored that many refuse to help themselves by using the available shelters and city/state programs and, instead, plant themselves right in the middle of the state’s economic engine. 

Then there is the letter blaming job exporters, with no conception of why this has happened or the certainty that many U.S. companies would not survive without foreign expansion.

And finally, in a letter lauding the Iran nuclear deal, comes the implication that the U.S. is responsible for the rise of radical Islam, yet places no blame on Islam itself and its extreme overreaction to the influences of liberal, secular Western culture.

Jeff Pace
Kapahulu

Have safe zones for the homeless

For many years, we have seen our government citing, harassing and frequently sweeping our houseless brothers and sisters from here to there while confiscating their few earthly possessions.

These actions have had virtually no effect on the numbers of folks who have no housing.

There is a simple, low-cost solution that would  greatly alleviate the problem until permanent housing can be found for all.

I humbly ask that our federal, state and city officials work together to create safe zones on small plots of empty government land around our island. People who tent on the sites would be asked to agree to reasonable house rules and could be evicted for violating them.

Working together, we can have a large impact on the problem and also show some aloha to our less fortunate brothers and sisters.

Bob Walker
Waialae Nui

Some homeless seem defiant

The homeless here in Waikiki do their best to congregate in the highest density tourist spots in Waikiki.

They routinely sleep on the sidewalks along Kala-kaua Avenue and often sprawl out across the sidewalk with their belongings scattered all over, or sit on a wall with their stolen shopping carts full to the brim with trash. It’s nothing less than in-your-face defiance of our laws.

Our elected representatives and police do abso-lutely nothing. If the homeless were routinely picked up daily, placed in shelters and had their stolen carts confiscated, I think they would eventually stop gravitating to our high-density tourist areas.

Doing nothing should not be an option. It’s not good for the homeless and it discourages tourism, which also has a negative effect on our economy and employment.

Harlan Dismuke
Waikiki

Leftists living in welfare la-la land

Alas, the persistent but feeble false narrative characterizing conservatives as green-faced, gift-grabbing grinches drones on (“Needy suffer for GOP policies,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Nov. 21).

It should be clear to anyone with a measure of common sense that our entitlement system, originally intended to provide a hand up to those in need, has evolved into an unsustainable cesspool of gross abuse, providing a lifestyle for those who would remain on government assistance for decades.

In light of this fact, suggesting that a family provided $673 monthly be asked to make do with $20 less is hardly “defunding programs for the nations most needy.”

Until the left awakens from its slumber in a land where money grows on trees and they stake a claim on compassion, we are destined to the fate of a nation in which consumers outnumber producers.

Joan Rank
Waialua

Obamacare fails on many levels

Official studies of the Affordable Care Act show that the government undertook reform of health care insurance because 41 million eligible people are uninsured.

The government estimates that after 10 years under this program, 31 million people will remain uninsured.

The law creates jobs for marketplace “navigators” to be paid through federal grants. Thousands are to be hired and none of them will provide any health care services. Ditto for the 16,000 IRS agents who are hired because the individual mandate is a tax.  

New preventive-care benefits will be provided without cost sharing. Cost sharing is code for co-payments and deductibles, so the cost of these “free” preventative benefits is buried in the cost of insurance coverage. This is why we see significant increases in the cost of Obamacare insurance. So the ACA fails to solve the fundamental problem of the uninsured, and adds costly overhead jobs plus expensive “free” preventative benefits.

Mark Felman
Kapolei