Gene Park: Inviting You to Our Next Civil Cafe With Sen. Clayton Hee
During the bill-signing ceremony for same-sex marriage, Sen. Clayton Hee insisted he had played a “small role” in Hawaii becoming the 15th state to allow same-sex marriage.
In the grand scheme of things, given the 20 years of debate over the issue in Hawaii, that may be true.
Over the years, there have been many small — and even large — roles, filled by the likes of former Hawaii Supreme Court Associate Justice , among others.
But there’s no question that Hee played an outsized role in this year’s legislative process. He shepherded Senate Bill 1, or SB1, through the state Senate, which in turn resulted in seemingly endless nights of politically and religiously charged speeches at the state House. By contrast, when the legislation returned to the Senate, it saw easy passage, as Hee had essentially promised.
Hee’s intimate knowledge about how the process worked is why we decided to ask him to be the focus of our next Civil Cafe for a discussion about the historic special session that legalized gay marriage, how it happened and what it might mean going forward. The event will take place at 6 p.m. Wednesday on Nov. 20 in our newsroom.
The event is free and open to the public (besides $4 parking available), but please RSVP at for our logistical purposes.
In 2011, reporter Chad Blair wrote that with the possible exception of Senate President Donna Mercado Kim, “there is no legislator more feared than Hee.”
That still holds true today, and his blunt style of leadership showed during the Senate hearings when he openly challenged residents on their testimony.
A basic online search of the senator’s name and the word “marriage” brings up hundreds of results. For having played such a small role, Hee cast a vast shadow over the entire process.
Of course, he isn’t just the “same-sex marriage senator.” He’s chairman of the influential Judiciary and Labor and Hawaiian Affairs Senate committees, and is the longest-serving chairman of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. He has insights to share on the upcoming legislative session as well, with lawmakers finally free to move on to other important issues.
In the meantime, I’ve placed 18 pages of live discussion and interactive blogged comments from the special session below, all archived for you to scroll through. Out of 492 comments published below, 276 of them came from you. Collectively, you all spent about 5,177 hours engaging with each other. Beat that, state House!
And guess what? I only partially moderated the discussion to eliminate personal insults. Although the debate at the state Capitol rotunda was loud and rowdy enough that state sheriffs needed to intervene, our little civic square lived up to its name. Personally I’m proud of our community. We’ll aim for a similar tone at our Civil Cafe with Sen. Clayton Hee. We hope you can come join us.
