Editor’s Note: Today Civil Beat is publishing an article, “Kicking God Out of the Hawaii Senate, that explains how Hawaii’s Senate became the first legislative body in the country to end religious invocations. We’re also publishing the transcript of an interview with First Amendment scholar Charles Haynes exploring the legal history of legislative invocations, Invocations Satisfy No One. This article provides a look at the history of invocations in Hawaii.

Hawaii has a long history of opening the Legislature with invocations.

Old newspaper clippings show that even before statehood, Hawaii’s territorial Legislature opened some sessions with an invocation.

For example, in 1954, the 27th territorial Legislature began with an invocation by the Rev. Samuel Keala of Kaumakapili Church, according to a Hawaii Senate Library journal.

And when the Legislature convened for the Constitutional Convention of 1978, an invocation of the Divine Blessing was on the agenda.

Religious figures have also presided over historic moments for Hawaii government.

When Gov. William F. Quinn was inaugurated in conjunction with celebration of statehood in 1959, more than 5,000 people gathered on Iolani Palace grounds as the Rev. John McDonald delivered the invocation and the Rev. Abraham Akaka gave the benediction.

Akaka also gave an invocation at the Senate when the first Hawaii State Legislature convened on Aug. 31, 1959. The Rev. Robert Mackey, president of Chaminade College, gave the invocation for the House.

“By the time of statehood, the population (in Hawaii) was cosmopolitan, with Japanese as the largest ethnic group, followed by Hawaiians, and then Caucasians. In general, Caucasians and Hawaiians were probably mostly Christian—Japanese not so much so as they were primarily Buddhist,” said Jonathan Osorio, Hawaiian Studies professor at the University of Hawaii. “There were fairly strong Chinese Christian churches and Filipinos and Puerto Ricans were Christian and Catholic as well.”

Osorio said invocations were probably used in the Legislature because it was an American custom. “The reason it was custom in the territorial Legislature and through early statehood up to this point, is because in Hawaii we have generally modeled our institutions after typical American models,” he said. Hawaii had religious invocations to prove, Osorio said, “that we were as American as anyone else.”

That the Senate ended invocations does not surprise Osorio. But he doesn’t expect prayers to stop.

“Hawaiians pray all the time,” he told Civil Beat. “We pray to a variety of deities and we open up many of our deliberations and important occasions with prayer and we’re not going to stop doing that.”

Red Mass

There is also a history of Hawaii politicians attending Mass, as did Gov. Neil Abercrombie this year. Before the second Hawaii State Legislature convened on Feb. 17, 1960, state and city officials gathered at Our Lady of Peace Catholic Cathedral for the Red Mass. Bishop John J. Scanlan, auxiliary Catholic bishop of Honolulu, blessed the ceremony.

In a picture that ran in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin from the cathedral, Representatives George Koga and Joseph Garcia, Mayor Neal S. Blaisdell, Gov. William Quinn, House Speaker Elmer F. Carvalho and Rep. Frank W.C. Loo are featured with two of them holding prayer books.

In 2008, former Gov. Linda Lingle attended Red Mass at the same cathedral. Chief Justice Ronald Moon, Supreme Court Justice James Duffy, Maui Mayor Charmaine Tavares, 18 members of the Legislature, three city council members and members of the Honolulu Police and Fire Departments also attended the Mass.

Martin Luther King, Jr. addresses the Legislature

Lesser known in Hawaii’s legislative history is that the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed the House of Representatives on Sept. 17, 1959. Hawaii was the 50th state admitted to the union on Aug. 21, 1959. His speech focused on the battle for civil rights and barely invoked God or prayer.

King did mention a slave preacher that said, “Lord we ain’t what we want to be; we ain’t what we ought to be; we ain’t what we gonna be, but thank God, we ain’t what we was,” in reference to the progress African-Americans made since the abolition of slavery.

“I come to you with a great deal of appreciation and great feeling of appreciation I should say, for what has been accomplished in this beautiful setting and in this beautiful state of our Union,” said King in his speech to the Legislature.

King later said in the Dexter Echo, a biweekly church newsletter, that he admired the diversity in Hawaii. “As I looked at all those various faces and various colors mingled together like the waters of the sea, I could only see one face — the face of the future!”

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