Hawaii House Rejects Religious Freedom Restoration Act (HB 1624)
Jim Hochberg, President of Hawaii Family Advocates, writes, “In special session last November, your State Government created legal homosexual marriage with language in the law that clearly puts your religious liberty in danger whenever it comes up against homosexual marriage issues. At the time, our friends in the House sought to amend the bill to protect religious liberty and fix other issues with 24 amendments. Each one failed. At the time, the idea was that the majority in the House would take up the issues in this session.”
Religious Freedom Restoration Act (HB 1624)
House Bill 1624 was introduced to strengthen religious liberty, but House Judiciary Committee Chairman Karl Rhoads (District 29: Kalihi, Palama, Iwilei and Chinatown) steadfastly refused to schedule a hearing on the bill because he viewed it as “re-litigating SB1” which he refused to do.
On February 13, 2014, Representative Bob McDermott (District 40: Ewa, Ewa Beach, Ewa Gentry and Iroquois Point) made a motion on the floor during session to pull the bill from the Judiciary Committee so that it could be voted on by the full House for Second Reading without the committee hearing. Seventeen House members voted with him (18) to bring the bill to a vote (listed as support in the chart below), but of the other 33 House members, 28 voted to recommit (listed as oppose in the chart below) the bill to the committee where it is dead for this session. The other five members were absent.
What is truly disturbing is that our citizen-driven push by 2,500 of you who contacted the House members requesting a hearing on HB1624 was completely ignored by the majority in the House. This majority apparently does not view your religious liberty as important enough to have a committee hearing or a vote on the floor.
ABSENT
| Representative Faye P. Hanohano | HI-004 | Absent |
| Representative Karen Awana | HI-043 | Absent |
| Representative Mele Carroll | HI-013 | Absent |
| Representative Romy Cachola | HI-030 | Absent |
| Representative Roy M. Takumi | HI-035 | Absent |
SUPPORT
| Representative Henry J. C. Aquino | HI-038 | Support |
| Representative Isaac Choy | HI-023 | Support |
| Representative Ty Cullen | HI-039 | Support |
| Representative Richard Fale | HI-047 | Support |
| Representative Beth Fukumoto | HI-036 | Support |
| Representative Sharon E. Har | HI-042 | Support |
| Representative Ken Ito | HI-049 | Support |
| Minority Leader Aaron Johanson | HI-031 | Support |
| Representative Jo Jordan | HI-044 | Support |
| Representative Derek S.K. Kawakami | HI-014 | Support |
| Representative Lauren Matsumoto | HI-045 | Support |
| Representative Bob McDermott | HI-040 | Support |
| Representative Marcus R. Oshiro | HI-046 | Support |
| Speaker Emeritus Calvin K. Y. Say | HI-020 | Support |
| Representative James K. Tokioka | HI-015 | Support |
| Representative Clift Tsuji | HI-002 | Support |
| Representative Gene Ward | HI-017 | Support |
| Representative Ryan I. Yamane | HI-037 | Support |
OPPOSE
| Representative Della Au Belatti | HI-024 | Oppose |
| Representative Thomas Brower | HI-022 | Oppose |
| Representative Rida T.R. Cabanilla | HI-041 | Oppose |
| Representative Richard P. Creagan | HI-005 | Oppose |
| Representative Cindy Evans | HI-007 | Oppose |
| Representative Mark Hashem | HI-018 | Oppose |
| Representative Linda Ichiyama | HI-032 | Oppose |
| Representative Kaniela Ing | HI-011 | Oppose |
| Representative Bertrand Kobayashi | HI-019 | Oppose |
| Representative Chris Lee | HI-051 | Oppose |
| Representative Nicole E. Lowen | HI-006 | Oppose |
| Representative Sylvia Luke | HI-025 | Oppose |
| Representative Angus L.K. McKelvey | HI-010 | Oppose |
| Representative John M. Mizuno | HI-028 | Oppose |
| Representative Daynette Morikawa | HI-016 | Oppose |
| Representative Mark M. Nakashima | HI-001 | Oppose |
| Representative Scott Y. Nishimoto | HI-021 | Oppose |
| Representative Takashi Ohno | HI-027 | Oppose |
| Representative Richard H.K. Onishi | HI-003 | Oppose |
| Representative Karl Rhoads | HI-029 | Oppose |
| Majority Leader Scott K. Saiki | HI-026 | Oppose |
| Speaker Joseph Souki | HI-008 | Oppose |
| Representative K. Mark Takai | HI-033 | Oppose |
| Representative Gregg Takayama | HI-034 | Oppose |
| Representative Cynthia Thielen | HI-050 | Oppose |
| Representative Justin H. Woodson | HI-009 | Oppose |
| Representative Jessica Wooley | HI-048 | Oppose |
| Representative Kyle T. Yamashita | HI-012 | Oppose |
SB1 gave homosexuals legal liberties they did not have before, while your religious liberty was trampled on by SB1. Remind your representative that tolerance is a two way street.
ACTION:
If your representative opposed the recall of HB1624, please today or early next week call, email or visit them in person and find out for yourself why they did not represent your interests on HB1624. If your representative supported the recall of HB1624 so that people of faith would be protected, please contact them and let them know you support them and their actions. Please do not leave this action to others. Every one of us must take the five minutes to make the contact so they know you have not gone back to sleep. They believe you have and that is why they don’t think they need to care about your religious liberty. (Click the link on the bottom of this email to send a message to your legislator).
If you need help identifying your Hawii Representative, please CLICK HERE.
Hawaii Family Advocates is a 501C4 organization associated with Hawaii Family Forum. Click the link below to log in and send your message: https://www.votervoice.net/link/target/hiff/4J5K7WqbW.aspx
