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This week on Maui, as with so many weeks before, we are thankful to live where acceptance and respect are society's default settings.
Despite our many differences, we live in a harmony that most communities in this world can only dream of. It starts with the host culture. With their aloha spirit and connection to the land, sea and air, Hawaiians set the state's baseline for kindness, compassion and responsibility to future generations. They teach us that living on a remote island chain is better when we get along. Working together moves things forward.
Perhaps that is what makes the meanness and pettiness we see on the Mainland news so jarring. With all the grave issues that need to be addressed in America, obstructionists pander in low-hanging tropes intended to stoke division and anger. This canned rage rarely has anything to do with the economy or critical policy, but focuses on hot-button topics to rack up clicks and airtime.
Of all the frivolous campaigns we have seen lately, the biggest headscratcher has to be the attacks on gay and transgender rights. Wasn't this already settled by the courts and in Congress? Don't LGBTQ+ Americans have the same unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as every other citizen?
We thought America had moved a long way toward living up to those high ideals laid out 247 years ago in the Declaration of Independence. The struggles for true equality for people of color, women, LGBTQ+ and those with disabilities are not finished, but surely progress had been made. With each generation, acceptance and understanding were becoming the norm. Right?
Or was America faking it? Had its bigots merely learned to hide their prejudices and hatred? Our last president blew the lid off such restraint. Suddenly, it was OK to attack anybody or anything to advance your personal agenda, whether they be Gold Star parents, down-on-their-luck immigrants or respected scientists. Ratings and poll numbers meant more than decency and truth.
Now we have state legislatures enacting laws that not only strip LGBTQ+ people of their hard-won rights, but also extol rhetoric that puts their lives and safety at risk. To what purpose? Could it be a distraction? Since they can't solve big ticket problems such as climate change and mass shootings, let's go back to picking on people who are different than we are? Who benefits from this bucket of crabs politics of division and anger? Surely not society as a whole.
Hawaiians long ago accepted that aikane (same-sex partners) and mahu (transgender or those with dual male-female spirits) people are regular parts of society. Rather than expecting them to conform, their abilities are celebrated and appreciated. Once again, Hawaii provides America with a shining example of how to live up to its own lofty ideals.