City
of God
Did
the city-sponsored Family Day Festival promote religion?
Chad Blair
July 23 , 2003
Saturday, July 5, was a lovely day for a parade. Beginning at Fort DeRussy, a convoy of cars and floats ambled down Kaläkaua Avenue to Kapi‘olani Park. In the first car sat Uncle Sam, followed by Mayor Jeremy Harris and his wife Ramona. Councilmember Mike Gabbard and his wife, Carol, the Board of Education member, also rode in the Family Day Parade, aka the Kids’ Parade.
A few cars back the Hawai‘i Christian Coalition’s Garrett Hashimoto followed in a red Corvette convertible. The Messianic Singers and Dancers (i.e., Jews for Jesus) drove by, too, waving an Israeli flag and trumpeting horns of Jericho. Near the end came a contingency of “warriors,” Polynesian teens holding placards praising God. Members of Emmanuel Temple, an evangelical church in Wahiawä, brought up the rear.
“I did not see one group that could claim to be mainstream,” said one observer. “I saw no Methodists, no Lutherans, not even Mormons.”
Aston Hotels offered a contingency of kids and electric cars. Lani Moo was there.
But so too was an Aloha Pregnancy truck (no, not the abortion truck). Female passengers told passersby, “Save the babies,” and passed out little slips with hard candy to young girls, inviting them to call.
At parade’s end, where Kaläkaua meets Kapahulu Avenue, some 50 protesters were cordoned off behind police barricades. Horns blared from city vehicles, drowning out the protests. When a tank in the parade rumbled by carrying small children, a woman aimed the large gun perched atop the turret, pretending to shoot the demonstrators.
At the Family Day Festival in the park, booths for food, arts and crafts had been assembled among giant inflatable playthings for the keiki. The former Kodak Hula location at the Shell was decorated for a SongFest. A banner above sported the seal of the City & County of Honolulu.
A SongFest emcee announced, “There’s no shame about spreading the gospel of the Lord.” Performers sang “Our God is an awesome God, He reigns from heaven above,” and recited born-again testimonials.
“We need to tell everyone about salvation,” said one entertainer.
At a Children’s Stage erected near the bandstand, dancers lip-synching Christianity-laced pop entertained kids: “Glory to the Lord on high, you are holy, Lord of heaven and Earth.”
“The kids were too young to know what was going on,” complained a witness. “It was a revival meeting, a Jesus fest.”
A lawsuit filed July 14 in Circuit Court by the local American Civil Liberties Union accuses the Harris administration of sponsoring a festival akin to a church service. The suit asks that the mayor and deputy managing director Malcolm Tom reimburse out of their own pockets the estimated cost of the city’s sponsorship, which could easily run as high as $50,000.
The city’s cosponsorship of the festival appears to be a flagrant violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The ACLU says the day’s events promoted fundamentalist Christian beliefs and raised money for religious organizations and conservative groups, including Hawai‘i Right to Life.
In a separate June 27 lawsuit, the ACLU charged that the city also cosponsored the parade, and so it should have permitted others to participate, including gay and lesbian groups. The city denied sponsoring the parade, though the parade was part and parcel with the festival.
Two days before the parade, U.S. District Court Judge Helen Gillmor sided with the city that the parade was a private function headed by the Hawai‘i Christian Coalition. But the city must preserve documentation relevant to the parade, documents that the ACLU believes will clearly show that the city did in fact cosponsor, organize and promote the parade.
The ACLU has already compiled evidence including city promotional materials, meeting notes, memoranda, application forms, Web pages and newsletters demonstrating the city’s direct involvement with the parade. (Select documents are posted at www.acluhawaii.org.) These documents suggest the city lied about the parade in court and tried to cover up their involvement, and that Judge Gillmor ignored strong evidence, trying to sweep the matter under the rug.
Some examples:
• Notes from an April 30 meeting suggest that the city conceptualized the parade to be open to “everyone.” The city determined the content of the parade;
• Gerald Silva, deputy director of Customer Services, told Fort DeRussy officials that the city was sponsoring the parade;
• The city’s attorneys, the Corporation Counsel, finalized parade entry forms and rules;
• City employees and departments were listed as responsible for parade parking, shuttle buses, routes, loading and unloading. The city advertised the festival/parade through its Web site, flyers, radio commercials, and posters in city buildings and buses. City vehicles were involved in the parade;
• The city provided portable toilets, bus pickup, and cleaning of the Fort DeRussy grounds (which the city secured) for the parade;
• Until the ACLU sued, the city also intended to provide trailers and lowboys for the Hawai‘i Christian Coalition to decorate at city locations;
• Individuals interested in participating in the parade were told to fax Malcolm Tom or Hashimoto. Tom announced at a June 25 organizational meeting that city employees would be paid overtime on July 4 and 5 to help the parade;
• The Office of the Managing Director paid for the mailing of Hawai‘i Christian Coalition letters containing scripture (Matthew 13:23) and inviting individuals to join the parade;
• The city’s Web site stated that it was a cosponsor of Family Day events and invited people to join the parade. Individuals were directed to call Alvin Au, director of Facility Maintenance or Paulette Williams of the Hawai‘i Christian Coalition for applications.
Harris reportedly held an emergency meeting July 2, the day after the hearing for the ACLU’s request for a temporary restraining order to allow gay and lesbian groups to march in the parade. Later that day the city told Gillmor that it was not providing any support or service for the Family Day parade that it does not provide for other parades. This came as a surprise to many groups who were never provided similar help for their parades.
In response to Weekly calls to the mayor and Corporation Counsel, a single sentence was faxed back: “Deputy Corporation Counsel Greg Swartz said today [July 14] that the city believes that it conducted the Family Day Festival in an appropriate manner and that further litigation by the ACLU would be a waste of taxpayer monies and the court’s time and resources.”
