Gay renters should have rights, too

In Phillip C. Smith's letter, "We also must preserve rights of religious," (Star-Bulletin, April 27) he states the rights of the landlords to refuse to rent to homosexuals, but he totally denies and ignores the rights of the renters. How is that, as he describes it, "a balance between religion and sexual orientation, with preference both ways"?

John F. Furtak
Lihue, Kauai

Housing discrimination against gays will go on

I'm only the mother of a gay son, but I strongly disagree with anyone who would think that House Bill 537 on protection of housing rights would "hurt their civil rights" ("Lack of compromise kills housing bias bill," Star-Bulletin, May 5). The bill was flawed by the Hawaii Christian Coalition's demand for waivers that exceeded any reasonable real estate request. Such outlandish demands should be denied on the basis of separation of state and church. Churches don't pay taxes on land use or any other monetary exchange and as such are a drain on the government. When they demand the denial of civil rights to citizens who are taxpayers, not only does it become a matter of legal justice but a matter of civic conscience to ignore such demands.

HB 537 would have given the gay community housing protection. Housing is not a luxury item, it is a daily need. Now that protection is again dashed.

For some Christians to fight against a person's right for fair housing is unconscionable, but even more troubling is the thought that there are those in the gay community who support the thinking reflected in the article such as, "The anti-discrimination bill, however, failed to win the support of the gay community." I'm not gay and would never speak for them, but I denounce any such short-sighted attitude. A great disservice has been done to the civil rights and social justice of the citizens in Hawaii with the death of this bill.

Carolyn Martinez Golojuch
President
Parents, Friends and Families of Lesbians and Gays, Oahu
Makakilo

Gabbard's mission is to deny rights to gays

I am responding to Ramon Garza's May 6 letter supporting Mike Gabbard as a congressional candidate.

Gabbard clearly is a one-issue candidate. His ads for his campaign to represent Hawaii in Washington, D.C., focus on his fight to maintain marriage as a heterosexual privilege. He makes it quite clear that that is the one thing he knows: opposing fair and just treatment of gay and lesbian Americans.

Regarding "judicial activism," where was Gabbard when the U.S. Supreme Court gave the last presidential election to Bush in clear defiance of "the people's will," since Gore received more than a half-million more votes than Bush did? That apparently was a non-issue, but when the courts support the Constitution (which promises equality for ALL Americans, and says nothing about marriage being a special right for heteros only), then it's "judicial activism." The courts were only doing their job when they ruled that barring same-sex American couples the rights of marriage was unconstitutional.

Ken Scott
Honolulu

Kennedy's calls to oust Rumsfeld hypocritical

Sen. Edward Kennedy and other prominent Democrats are calling for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's removal because of the abuses by a few imbecilic Americans of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison. On March 16, 1968, U.S. troops killed several hundred villagers in My Lai, Vietnam, a much greater crime that led to courts-martial proceedings against those responsible. I do not recall hearing Kennedy, at that time already a U.S. senator for five years, calling for the removal from office of Clark Clifford as secretary of defense. Clifford had just been appointed by Democrat President Lyndon Johnson to replace Robert McNamara, who, we learned much later, was anti-war while serving in the position. Apparently, political expediency now takes precedence over the retention of Rumsfeld, a strong and effective public servant pursuing U.S. interests fully rather than half-heartedly as was done during the war in Vietnam.

Frank Genadio
Kapolei

FDA's decision reflects Bush's ideology

The Federal Drug Administration's decision to deny Plan B emergency contraception over-the-counter status was a major public health setback and a blow to women's reproductive rights and health. Again, the Bush administration's ideology takes precedence over science.

Emergency contraception is a safe method of preventing pregnancy, and it meets the FDA's own rigorous criteria for over-the-counter status.

In December, a joint meeting of the FDA Reproductive Health Drugs and Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committees met and voted to make Plan B emergency contraception available without a prescription.

But last Thursday the FDA overruled them -- and not for scientific reasons. The hollow claims about concerns over young women's use of emergency contraceptives are baseless and were disproved by a recent University of Pittsburgh study, which demonstrated that access to such pills does not make teenagers more likely to have unprotected sex.

So why did the FDA ignore its own advisory committee? Because it was willing to let baseless anti-choice propaganda influence what should have been an objective scientific decision, and to sacrifice women's health in the process.

Barry Raff
CEO
Planned Parenthood of Hawaii
Honolulu