Ed Case: “I stand today in defense of that most basic expression of our fundamental freedoms, our Bill of Rights, and I rise in…”

“I stand today in defense of that most basic expression of our fundamental freedoms, our Bill of Rights, and I rise in doing so with incredible pride in my State of Hawaii, which does not just talk about the Bill of Rights, we live it. For generations now we have understood, not just in our heads but in our hearts, in our bones, the very essence of the Bill of Rights, which is that it protects minorities against the will of the majority. We have understood it not just because it was handed down to us from the cultural heritage of our indigenous peoples, the native Hawaiians, but because in Hawaii we are all minorities. Ethnically, no race is a majority. My own Caucasian race, no more than 25 percent. Americans of Asian descent, no more than 40 percent. Native Hawaiians, little over 10 percent. None of us is in the majority. We have to take care of each other, and similarly with the religions we have in Hawaii. Our predominant Christian tradition in the rest of our country, no more than a third of the people in Hawaii, perhaps another third practicing religions that come primarily from Asia, Buddhist, Shinto, Hindu, and the rest of them an assortment of religions. So in my Hawaii tolerance of diversity is not a matter just of civility. It is a matter of basic necessity.”