Hawaii’s #SB1 (Equality Bill)

November 9, 2013

Since I work nights, I usually don’t wake up until about 4:30pm. But yesterday, I woke up early. Couldn’t get back to sleep. That’s when I saw on my twitter feed that I could watch the Hawaii House of Representatives debate the same-sex marriage bill. Yee haw!

(After all, is there anything I love more than watching legislation in progress?)

I turned it on, things seemed to pretty much be moving along. Little did I know it was going to last 11 more hours after I started watching it!

I live-tweeted along, so you can see things that I thought were relevant on my timeline. But basically, to sum it up here:

29 amendments were proposed – basically to stall time and allow as much discrimination as possible in a bill designed to stop incriminating. None of the amendments passed. A few reps (Lee, Rhoads, and others) made points that made a lot of sense. Other reps (McDermott, Har, Ward & more) said things that didn’t make as much sense.

After I thought I was in love with Rep Lee, Rep Ing gave his speech. It was incredible. I was sitting at my desk at work tearing up a little. He hit all the right points in a personal and emotional way. A+ to him.

I will say that during the debates (especially as they went on and on), I did have a tendency to get a little sarcastic. And I know I need to take it easy on the sarcasm or anger or everything like that. And it’s hard to find the line to try to kind of be funny or add your own personal touch/spin while not actually being mean to the other side.

‘Cause I know if you want tolerance and kindness and patience, you must be tolerance and kindness and patience. But it’s hard sometimes, I think. And I’m still finding that line. (Maybe forever I’ll be finding that line, who knows.)

I want to give a huge shoutout to Rep. Thielen – the only Republican who voted in favor of marriage equality. High five, girl!

One thing that many of the republicans kept saying was “let the people vote.” There was even a big (or at least loud ’cause you could hear their chants) crowd outside in opposition supporting that standpoint. I’m all for democracy and all. But you do not let the people vote when it comes to the rights of a minority. Protection for all citizens shouldn’t be up to the people. That’s when it’s time for elected officials to stand up and say “we are equal!”

Thankfully, that’s what ended up happening. In a vote 30-19, the Hawaii House passed the bill. It’s now onto the Senate, but they’ve already said they will pass it. So, we’ll officially have marriage equality in Hawaii soon.

On a related side note: if anyone knows of any jobs where I can just get paid to watch this kind of stuff all day long and either live tweet them or make comments, can you just let me know? ‘Cause that would kind of be a dream. (I’m thinking staff member at The Daily Show, but you know my mind is so open to whatever you got!)

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