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Editorials
Wednesday, September 13, 2000Maui site seems right
for dolphin researchThe issue: A proposed educational theme park in Kihei, Maui, would include a dolphin research facility.
THE search for a new home for the dolphin research center at Kewalo Basin appears to have ended in success. The Maui Planning Commission has approved a development described as a family educational theme park in Kihei that would include the Dolphin Institute.
Barring further complications, the decision should clear the way for the Maui Nui Park project, which is sponsored by the nonprofit Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.
In addition to the dolphin center, the project would include educational displays on volcanoes, tsunamis, astronomy, agriculture and biology. There would also be a restaurant, wedding chapel, luau garden, amphitheater, exhibition hall, aviary, boat rides and other attractions to generate income.
Opposition to the dolphin project, including a threatened film industry boycott of Maui, surfaced at a commission hearing. The main objection appeared to be that the facility entails the use of captive animals. The boycott threat came from Richard Donner, producer of the film "Free Willy" about a captive killer whale.
The dolphin center has faced opposition on this basis in the past, including the unauthorized release of two dolphins into the ocean from its Honolulu facility, which resulted in criminal prosecution of the perpetrators.
Institute officials pointed out that studies have shown captive dolphins are unlikely to survive if released.
Moreover, the four dolphins at the center aren't mistreated like the killer whale in the film or slaughtered like hundreds of thousands of wild dolphins. Nor are they exploited for commercial gain.
Rather, they are used for scientific research that has made important contributions to knowledge of the animals' behavior. In addition, tours are conducted for educational purposes.
The Maui park would provide expanded facilities -- a one-acre salt water lagoon, isolation tank, research building and learning center -- but the scientific character of the operation in Honolulu would be maintained. Officials say no other dolphins would be captured in the wild for the institute's use.
THIS is an operation that fits Hawaii's ambitions to be a center of marine studies. It deserves support at both the county and state levels.
The Kihei project appears to be the best available solution to the need for a new home created when the state ordered the institute to vacate the Kewalo Basin site. It would be regrettable if the opponents found a way to block the move to Maui.
State should recognize
same-sex partnerships
GAY relationships have gained increased acceptance in Europe and the United States in the two years following Hawaii's retreat from the vanguard of the gay-rights movement. Advances in jurisdictions that have taken bold steps to legalize same-sex marriages should encourage Hawaii legislators to return to the issue and extend rights and benefits to homosexual partners.
In March, Vermont became the first state allowing homosexuals to form "civil unions" that provide the rights and benefits of marriage without the name. Partners can apply for a license from town clerks and have their civil unions "certified" by a judge or member of the clergy. They are entitled to some 300 state benefits or privileges available to married people.
The federal government does not recognize Vermont's civil unions in such areas as immigration rights, Social Security and income taxes. However, national legislation has been approved in several European countries.
Gay couples in Norway and Sweden can register their partnerships. Denmark in 1989 became the first nation to allow gay marriages.
Two years ago the Netherlands enacted a law allowing same-sex couples to register with the government as partners and to claim pensions, social security and inheritance. A new Dutch law allows them to marry at city hall, adopt children and be treated the same as heterosexual couples in divorce court.
"We will be able to call it what it is and that's marriage," said Henk Krol, an activist and editor-in-chief of the Gay Krant magazine.
That was Hawaii's potential course in 1996, when Circuit Judge Kevin Chang ruled that the state's prohibition of same-sex marriages violated the state Constitution's equal protection clause.
The issue brought national attention to Hawaii and led to the placing of a constitutional amendment on the 1998 ballot denying the right to same-sex marriage. It was approved by a better than 2-1 ratio. Subsequent attempts to enact legislation giving homosexual couples legal rights as domestic partners fizzled.
Although Hawaii does not recognize same-sex marriages, the state has no compelling need to deny legal partnerships to gay couples. The Legislature should revisit this issue and extend to homosexual couples the full rights and benefits enjoyed by heterosexual couples, without calling it marriage.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
