by Andrew Walden
Mobilizing to register voters and turn out votes after the fight over HB444 last year, Hawaii churches brought about 15,000 voters to the polls and shifted many State House races in favor of candidates pledged to vote against civil unions. Although the effort helped reverse years of GOP decline in the State House, the numbers fell short of what was needed to block passage and in most cases the electoral gains were not sufficient for victory.
The election was not fought over civil unions, but rather fought between competing visions of political leadership one of which was pro-civil unions, the other against.
As a result of the election, on February 11, the Hawaii State House voted 31-19 in favor of SB232 Civil Unions. But the result was a lot closer than it would seem. If the following seven races had been won by civil unions opponents, and all other State Reps voted as they did in the House on February 11, SB232 Civil Unions would have failed in the House by a vote of 25-26. The margin of victory in these races is a total of 3,334 votes.
- HD38 Mililani -- Marilyn Lee beat Shaun Kawakami by 16 votes 0.2%
- HD6 Kailua-Kona -- Denny Coffman beat Becky Leau by 257 votes 3.6%
- HD18 Hawaii Kai -- Mark Hashem beat Chris Baron by 463 votes 4.6%
- HD28 Downtown -- Karl Rhoads beat David Chang by 567 votes 9.7%
- HD42 Ewa -- Rida Cabanilla beat Tom Berg by 613 votes 12.0%
- HD33 Aiea -- Blake Oshiro beat Sam Kong by 670 votes 8.6%
- HD45 Waianae -- Maile Shimabukuro beat Jadeen Meyers by 748 votes 16.1%
It behooves Christians to bring more voters to the polls in 2012 to establish a bi-partisan pro-family majority in the House in order to block further efforts to undermine the nuclear family. The atheists are not going to quit.
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