We are greatly distressed to hear that Stephen Bright, who admitted to having beaten Kenneth Brewer to death with his bare hands, has been all but exonerated by a Hawaiian court.

We attended the opening of the trial and saw the autopsy photographs. Mr Brewer was, after this savage beating, no longer recognizable as a human being, his face and skull literally smashed.

Mr. Bright did not even deny that he had beaten Brewer. The burly, heavy shouldered construction worker asserted that the 60- year-old, out of shape Brewer had attempted to rape him and that he was defending himself. There was blood spattered on the ceiling of the room in which this “defense” took place.

Brewer’s blood was found, amongst other places, INSIDE Mr. Bright’s trousers.

The notice given to the citizens of Hawaii by the failure of the prosecutor’s office and the deliberations of the jury is that it is open season on gays in Hawaii; that we may be murdered with impunity.

Being gay would appear to be a capital crime here in the Rainbow State.

There is no essential difference between dragging a black man to his death behind a pick-up truck in Texas and the fatal assault on Kenneth Brewer or the Gay college student beaten and left to die in Wyoming.

All these horrible events were crimes of hatred.

A hatred which should be foreign to us here in Hawaii. It would seem that this is not the case, shamefully and tragically.

Ward Stewart

George Vye

Residents

Honolulu, Hawaii