Now, that went better than expected.
Earlier this afternoon, I was blessed enough to be able to take part in a roundtable discussion with Governor Linda Lingle, discussing (what else?) House Bill 444, House Draft 1, Senate Draft 1, or the infamous Civil Unions Bill. In attendance were organizations such as the Hawaii Family Forum, the Hawaii Christian Coalition, the Pastor's Roundtable, (I think it was called that? idk, I can't remember. XD) and Generation Joshua. Originally, the meeting was set for 2:00-3:00 pm; I thought that GenJ and the HCC were going to be the only organizations there. Apparently, I was dead wrong.
Nevertheless, it turned out to be an extremely pleasant surprise. Although the Hawaii Family Forum took the whole hour to make their presentation, the Governor was benevolent enough to tell us that if she had any conflicting events on her schedule for the day, she would waive them off. Good thing, too, because the entire meeting took twice as much time as we had initially thought.
The Generation Joshua members who spoke worked in seamless tandem; Ryan started off, describing the manipulation of the democratic system, Halley spoke next, covering the freedom of speech, I went after her, defining civil rights and giving a few examples of court cases dealing with civil rights, and Drake spoke last, naming some helpful statistics. Over the course of the meeting, some other members like Gage, Ricky, Lucas and Mya dropped some useful tidbits of wisdom. It's too bad some of the other members, like Kira, Gracie, Chelsea, and Joshua didn't get to speak....
She was extremely open to the youth's words, and very supportive. In my opinion, I think she listened more to what the youth had to say, than the adults. I don't know. That's just my opinion. XD
Anyway, the meeting was very civil, very pleasant, and extremely productive. I believe that we communicated our viewpoint very efficiently, and very thoroughly. We even got to pray over the Governor after the meeting, led by Kahu Kurt Kekuna.
Now, if only the meeting didn't conflict with the ESA elections..... oh, well. It is what it is.
Oh, and I got to sit right next to the LG, (Or should I say, the future Governor....) and two seats away from the Governor herself!!!! CHEE-HEE!!!!!!
