2000 State Legislature Alerts

Library Pornography

On March 31, 2000, the House Judiciary Committee killed the bill to restrict minors’ access to on-line pornography in Hawaii public Libraries. 

HFF will not give up, of course.  

The next step is for concerned citizens to contact members of the Board of Education.  The Hawaii State Librarian reports to the Board.  The Board has the power to require the libraries to require minors to use pornography-free filtered computers, while allowing adult access to unfiltered computers.  The schools use filtered computers for kids.  Despite suggestions to the contrary, the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear there is no such thing as a child’s free speech rights to pornography.  In fact, in Hawaii like the rest of the nation, it is a crime to promote pornography to minors.

Call Board of Education members and politely but firmly urge them treat kids’ computers in the library just like the public school computers.  KIDS & pORN don’t mix.  Taxpayer funded libraries shouldn’t be providing kids with free and clear access to pornography.

Shannnon Ajifu              586-3343                       
Mitsugi Nakashima        586-3334
Noemi pendleton           586-3344                       
Keith Sakata                 586-3347
Winston Sakurai            586-3341                      
Garret Toguchi               586-3342
Michael Victorino           586-3339                       
Herbert Watanabe          586-3493
Lex Brodie                     586-3340                       
Karen Knudsen              586-3536
Marilee Lyons                586-3345         
Denise Matsumoto         586-3346
Ronald Nakano              586-3348

On April 4, 2000, this same House Judiciary Committee is poised to pass SB 2430, which would add sexual orientation as a protected class in anti-discrimination housing law.  This would force all landlords with sincerely held religious objections to the contrary to rent their property to homosexual couples.  It would even apply to church housing or religious school housing.  please contact members of the House Judiciary Committee and urge them to include a religious freedom exemption in SB 2430. 

House Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs Committee (JHA) phone & Fax

Eric Hamakawa, Chair                586-8480                       586-8484

Scott Saiki, Vice Chair               586-8485                       586-8489

Romy Cachola                           586-6110                       586-6111

Jerry L. Chang                           586-6120                       586-6121

Nestor Garcia                            586-8490                       586-8494

Kenneth Hiraki                           586-6180                       586-6181

Sol Kaho’ohalahala                    586-6790                       586-6779

Marilyn Lee                               586-9460                       586-9466

Hermina Morita                          586-8435                       586-8437

Roy Takumi                               586-6170                       586-6171

Terry Yoshinaga                         586-8450                       586-8454

Emily Auwae                             586-8460                       586-8464

David pendleton                         586-9490                       586-9496

Cynthia Thielen                          586-6480                       586-6481

paul Whalen                              586-9385                       586-9391          

To e-mail these legislators, return to HFF’s homepage www.pixi.com/~hff and click on Contact Legislators.

Two Depressed people Dead 
After TV Airing of How-To-Suicide Video

You may have missed the insufficient news coverage of an astonishing and tragic local event.  Two Honolulu residents who were depressed but not terminally ill are dead after the right-to-die organization Hemlock Society aired a videotape of a man providing graphic step by step instructions on how to commit suicide. 

According to a Honolulu deputy medical examiner, a 40-year old clinically depressed woman and a 60-year old man upset over a failed relationship died the weekend the video aired by asphyxiation - just as the video instructed.

This videotape was NOT a perfectly appropriate debate of a contentious social and medical issue –the legalization of physician assisted suicide. 

Instead, it was a recipe for death, plain and simple –broadcast on television for all to see despite the video’s own warning that its message is intended for a narrow audience of terminally ill people.

But a television audience is not narrow; it’s very broad.  Children, troubled teenagers, people with mental illness or clinical depression, anyone could turn on the television and obtain live and in-color instructions about ending his or her own life.

We’ve now learned two depressed people did just that.  The victims died within two days of the video’s airing.  The very rare method used was the same one described in the video.  The newspapers reported the Honolulu deputy medical examiner said she had not ever witnessed two separate suicides with the same method on the same weekend.  “I don’t think this was a coincidence,” she said.

No coincidence indeed.  To what depths have we sunk?  Even after the deaths, people are defending the legitimacy of promoting how-to kill-yourself television. Warnings about this very result were issued but not heeded.  Dr. Death himself, Jack Kevorkian, even issued a statement from prison saying the airing of this video was “outrageous and dangerous.” 

HFF is now working with our health care, disability rights, and pro-life partners in Hawaii’s partnership for Appropriate and Compassionate Care (HpACC) to spread the word about these tragedies so no more like them will occur – in Hawaii or on the mainland.  As a community, let’s make sure there are no more tragedies.

2000 State Legislature Issues

HFF's 2000 Legislative Issues

Support

• Require parental notification before minors can obtain abortions. (SB 2011, HB 1907)

• Ban partial birth and other post-viability abortions. (SB 2139, SB 2481)

• Require the Hawaii public library system to develop written policies and procedures to protect underage children from on-line pornography. (HB 2041, SB 2466)  HB 2041 has 27 co-sponsors and has been approved for inclusion in the keiki caucus package.  The keiki caucus is a sub-group of lawmakers particularly focused on issues affecting Hawaii’s children.

• Repeal a loophole in the current law that allows library staff personnel to promote pornography to minors.  (HB 2042, SB 2465)

• Raise Hawaii’s lowest in the nation age of consent to 16 from 14. (SB 2190, HB 2272, HB 1781, HB 1932)

• Make the commercial sexual exploitation of a minor a felony offense. (SB 2076, HB 1848)

• Strengthen the protections for victims of domestic violence. (HB 1838 & SB 2066, HB 1839 & SB 2067, HB1841 & SB 2969)

Oppose

• physician Assisted Suicide & Death (No new bills, only bills held over from last year HB 347,HB 418, SB 692, SB 981,SB 1037)

• Legalized Commercial Gambling–all forms(SB 2196, SB 2197, SB 2198, SB 2199, SB 2297, SB 2335, HB 2397, SB 3000, HB 2338) Bills range from shipboard gambling to ‘lottery for education’ to casinos.

• Sexual Orientation as a protected Class in public Accommodation Law (Needs Religious Freedom Exemption) SB 2430