Hawaii positioned to pass same-sex civil unions

[davidinalameda]

Hawaii voters opened the way for same-sex civil unions to become state law next year, with an election that gave victory to a pro-gay rights gubernatorial candidate and rejected many church-backed candidates.

The state House and Senate retained the Democratic majorities that approved a civil unions bill this year before it was vetoed, and Democratic Gov.-elect Neil Abercrombie has said he will sign a similar law if passed by the Legislature.

The move would make Hawaii, long a battleground in the gay rights movement, the sixth state to grant essentially the same rights of marriage to same-sex couples without authorizing marriage itself.

"I'm hopeful, but I would never want to call any shots until the final vote is taken," said Majority Leader Blake Oshiro, who is gay. "While I remain optimistic, there's still a lot of work to be done."


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/11/06/national/a110050D35.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz14XIwhMGq

[mahina]

1. What was really interesting was the blowout election, which wiped up the haters.

Not that long ago we were watching a sea of thousands of red shirted protesters
at the capitol, loudly threatening to eject any legislator unfriendly to their
views against equal rights.

Yeah...those guys got creamed! A Dino ran against Blake Oshiro and Oshiro was outed.
But his district, a conservative district, supported Oshiro in the Primary, and the
Dino is in the process of being sanctioned and/or kicked out of the party. :)

We are down to one Republican Senator. The Republicans made this election about 'gay marriage'
and the voters said, "Aloha also means, 'goodbye'".

[mitchtv]

2. Wow , good news for a change

K&R