I am absolutely dumbfounded by the way our Hawaii State Legislature allows itself to be bullied by one man, with reference to invocations at the beginning of State House and Senate sessions. Mitch Kahle has been on a crusade of sorts to take any reference to God out of the halls of our State Legislature, and using the Constitution of the United States as his excuse for his rude and offensive behavior.

Currently the Hawaii House of Representatives is taking up a bill to be able to deal with those who would disrupt the proceedings of the House. Mr. Kahle did just that under the pretense of Free Speech at the Hawaii State Senate while I was leading the invocation. He was forcibly removed from the chamber and consequently filed a lawsuit and won. The problem is though he has the right to free speech; the appropriate when and where of that free speech escapes the sensibilities of Mr. Kahle.

Freedom of speech has to do with the fact that we have the right to speak out against the government without the fear of being muzzled because the powers that be don’t like what we are saying. Mr. Kahle has interpreted freedom of speech to mean that he can interrupt and co-opt an event at his discretion, as he did at the Honolulu City Lights event this past December when Pastor Wayne Cordeiro voiced one of the opening prayers. Interestingly enough, when the Buddhist Priest voiced a prayer that was filled with Buddhist theology, he said nothing. The idea being that because the Buddhist Priest didn’t mention God, that it was non-sectarian, that just goes to show how little Mr. Kahle understands the tenets different faiths.

What’s even more disconcerting is the fact that both the House and the Senate have ceased the practice of opening their sessions with some type of prayer. This is just a matter of our legislators not doing their homework. Both the U. S. House and Senate open every session with a prayer and both employ Chaplains. If opening government legislative sessions in prayer were such a crime against the Constitution of the United States, how does this happen at the Federal level?

The fact is this has been going on since the beginning. In 1774 the Continental Congress employed an Episcopal priest as their first Chaplain. If Mr. Kahle, his attorney and others are right, how did the first Congress get away with it with the framers of the Constitution in the room? The answer is: their intent wasn’t to keep expressions of faith out of government. Their intent was to keep government out of the business of the church.

I have written a blog on this at http://drdavewocc.blogspot.com/2011/12/abusing-constitution.html. The information concerning the history and the consequent legal challenges concerning prayers in congress are covered and the answer is painfully obvious. You don’t have to be a legal scholar to see that those who are crying foul over prayers at publicly sponsored events are proffering a personal opinion, not one that has any constitutional merit.

I am hopeful that our legislators will not knuckle under to the few who would have us bow down to their convoluted view of the Constitution. I believe that it’s obvious that the original intent was to allow prayers at the beginning of legislative sessions and that faith was not to be excluded from governance.

One would just have to be historically inept to not see that the Founding Fathers had a high respect for faith and God. Their constant references to God and faith in their public and personal writings as well as their references to it in political discourse betray their intentions with reference to the Establishment Clause in the 1st amendment to the Constitution.

I am also hopeful that the House will pass a bill that will demand respect and consideration from those who attend sessions of the House and speak at appropriate times. Please legislators, do your homework. Don’t just stick your finger in the air to determine which way public opinion is blowing and vote in such a way as to get re-elected. Stand for what is right, what is constitutional, not what is politically expedient.

About the author: David Hockney is the pastor of the West Oahu Community Church in Kapolei. He has lived on Oahu for over five years, and is a graduate of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary with a Doctorate in Ministry.