Gary Hooser
Gary Hooser is a Berniecrat, a term used for those democrats (generally) running for office who have expressed support of former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.[1]
Background
Gay Pride March
The 2010, 20th annual Honolulu gay pride parade drew the support of only a handful of politicians.
“This is a democratic principle of a representative democracy,” said state Rep. Lyla Berg, a Democrat running for lieutenant governor. “As a mother and an educator, I know how important self-esteem is in a young person’s life. It cannot be underestimated.”
State Sen. Gary Hooser, another Democrat in the race for lieutenant governor, said he participates in many parades, including for military veterans and the Fourth of July.
Political figures who did turn out in support of gay pride included Dante Carpenter, chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, and former congressman Neil Abercrombie, who is running for governor.
Eric Gill, the secretary-treasurer of UNITE HERE! Local 5, participated in the parade, as did former Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Steven Levinson, who in 1993 wrote in Baehr v. Lewin that the state needed to demonstrate a “compelling state interest” for denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
“Thanks for coming out today,” Abercrombie said to the audience at the Kapiolani Park Bandstand, the parade’s terminus. He then laughed, catching the apparently unintended double meaning of his greeting.
Michael Golojuch, Jr., a coordinator for the Honolulu GLBT Pride Parade, said Gov. Linda Lingle was invited to the event by PFLAG Oahu, the event’s fiscal sponsor, but was traveling in Asia. He added that parade organizers did not want “a surrogate” in the governor’s place.
Very much in attendance, however, were state Rep. Jon Riki Karamatsu, Richard Turbin, an attorney running for Honolulu City Council, Rafael del Castillo, an attorney running in the Democratic primary for the 1st Congressional District, and Blake Oshiro, the primary sponsor of House Bill 444, the civil unions measure, and one of the few openly gay lawmakers in Hawaii.[2]