by Andrew Walden
When leaders of the Hawaii Business Roundtable June 4 sent a letter to Governor Lingle calling on her to veto HB444, mainland homosexual activists swung into action, dispatching two operatives to Hawaii. They are now pretending to have scored a victory. The Case family's Star-Advertiser reported June 24:
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay civil rights group, which is based in Washington, D.C., sent two activists to the islands to help respond to the Roundtable's veto request.
Tony Wagner, (a former Clinton Campaign staffer) the Human Rights Campaign's western regional field director, said the group had initially targeted contacts at national companies that are members of the Roundtable. Five national companies -- including Starwood, Time Warner and Marriott -- publicly broke with the Roundtable last Thursday.
The multi-million dollar Case Foundation, established by AOL’s Steve Case, lists the Human Rights Campaign as one of the “amazing organizations that have helped support our various Giving initiatives”.
Keep in mind that the Business Roundtable did not take a position against civil unions If anything, their letter implies they would support an improved Civil Unions bill in the 2011 Legislative Session. Their letter states:
It is recommended that a Commission be established to develop a recommendation for the State Legislature to consider in 2011. The Commission should include representatives from a broad constituency to provide thoughtful input which could result in meaningful legislation that will minimize the potential for legal challenges and long term problems.
Yet the response organized by the mainland homosexual lobby led local activists to threaten boycotts against individual members of the Business Roundtable. Civil Beat’s owner, billionaire Pierre Omidyar, is closely allied to the Case family in several business ventures and one human trafficking case. On June 24, Civil Beat described how the boycott threats worked:
In the case of Foodland Super Market, such an e-mail came in mid-June from loyal customer Eileen McKee (a Hillary Clinton donor) of Kihei, Maui.
"I am depressed to read that Foodland is one of the companies listed as part of the Hawaii Business Roundtable, who recently sent a letter to the governor, requesting that she veto the civil unions bill. I feel so sad about not being able to shop at your store anymore. I love the people, and always sensed that your company was open to diversity."
McKee wanted to know if Foodland stood behind the roundtable's action, a letter from its executive committee to the governor urging her to veto House Bill 444.
"Please advise, so I can still enter your store with my head held high," she concluded
Juliet Garcia, Foodland's community relations coordinator, promptly responded to McKee: "While Foodland is a member of the Hawaii Roundtable, we had no part in asking for a veto of this bill. We were not consulted regarding the letter sent to Governor Lingle."
This is a type of pressure which consumer-oriented companies such as hotels and supermarkets are particularly vulnerable to. But look at how far removed the pressure point is from the actual decision on HB444.
- Foodland is a member of Business Roundtable
- Foodland is not a member of the Executive Board
- The Business Roundtable Executive Board sent a letter to the Governor—one of 20,000 she has received on HB444.
- It is the Governor who will veto HB444--or not.
- And then it is the Legislature which may or may not override the governor’s veto.
And yet the HRC found it worthwhile to dispatch two organizers from the mainland to direct local activists in how to whip local retailers who are members of the Roundtable. That is a very interesting allocation of combat personnel.
The Business Roundtable’s call for a commission to write an improved version of HB444 in the 2011 session implicitly favors a 2011 Civil Unions bill, but after two weeks of harassment, the Business Roundtable sent another letter to Governor Lingle which (contrary the media reports) did not withdraw the call for a veto and underlined the fact that “Neither the Executive committee, in its letter, nor the Board of the Hawaii Business Roundtable has taken a position on Civil Unions.”
The Human Rights Campaign is calling this a victory.
This begs the question: what was in the Business Roundtable June 4 letter that was so very damaging?
Perhaps it was this passage:
While the bill attempts to address inequities in rights and benefits for domestic partners, it creates many more new problems which need to be addressed. The law stipulates that the implementation be effective 1/1/2010 which is virtually impossible and raises a number of legal issues. There are a number of questions that arise because of the manner in which the legislation was drafted such as “voidance of the civil union”, and other questions that have implications in the areas of inheritance, employment benefits and property rights. In addition, the effect of HB444 on pension and retirement benefit plans is also very complex given the confluence of the Employment Retirement Income Security Act, the Federal Defense of Marriage Act and the federal tax code, especially given the effective date of 1/1/2010.
Not a word of this was ever refuted. Argumentation from the gay lobby followed this deny and divert model from Civil Beat:
The roundtable's first letter, a four paragraph document, said the bill would create "many more new problems" for business. But it did not include any legal or financial backup, and ran counter to dozens of recent scholarly studies that showed recognizing same-sex relationships actually helps businesses, not hurts them.
The June 4 Business Roundtable letter pointed to legal confusion resulting from HB444—which creates grounds for litigation which will allow the Hawaii Judiciary to once again invent gay marriage—or more. The gay lobby--via Civil Beat--is pointing to their academic activist studies pretending that gay marriage will be a cash cow for Hawaii business. This counter-argument is clearly non-responsive.
The Business Roundtable may be the most substantive organization in Hawaii pointing to the broader ramifications of creating a legally recognized non-marriage. Their June 4 letter raises questions about the future developments which will be engendered by HB444. And maybe the gay lobby prefers a flawed Act and wants the Roundtable to shut up so nobody notices what society will encounter further down this road.
If silence is the goal, then it makes sense to declare a pretend victory even when the actual result is a further distancing of the Business Roundtable from support for Civil Unions.
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