As Hawaii lawmakers debate a proposed
gay marriage bill, one GOP group is warning that the real objective
of the law is to normalize “all sorts of deviant behavior.”
In a 60-second radio ad, Tito Montes,
president of the Hawai'i Republican Assembly (HIRA), says that the
bill's passage will have “terrible” consequences for all
Hawaiians.
“The current push for homosexual
marriage is not about marriage at all,” Montes
says in the ad. “That's right, the lie of so-called marriage
equality is merely a stepping stone to have government forcibly
legitimize and normalize all sorts of deviant behavior. Terrible
consequences will affect everyone and everything imaginable forever.”
“Do you want schools to teach your
5-year-old all about the gay and lesbian lifestyle? Or have your
child going to a school with gender neutral bathrooms? Do you want
your church forced to marry homosexuals? Do you want to see local
business people repeatedly forced to violate their faith?”
Montes concludes: “Demands like these
are dismantling society in other states that pass homosexual
marriage. Governor [Neil] Abercrombie has not warned you about this
and he has even recently admitted that bisexual marriage is right
around the corner.” (The video is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)
However, Montes does not mention that
the proposed law does not require clergy, ministers or priests to
provide marriage ceremonies to gay and lesbian couples. (However,
religious groups who want to marry gay couples are currently not
allowed to do so.)
Additionally, Hawaii law explicitly
prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender
identity in the areas of employment, public accommodations and
housing. That is, even without the marriage law, a business open to
the public cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.
On Monday, the
marriage bill cleared its first hurdle in the Senate. A
vote count finds sufficient lawmaker support for the bill to reach
the desk of the governor, who has pledged to sign it.