Gary Okino Prayer Sermon - Honolulu City Council, September 16, 2011

At the September 16th, 2011, Regular Meeting of the Honolulu City Council, the invited speaker, former Councilmember Gary Okino, delivered what can only be described as an overtly Christian sermon, complete with his waiving of the Bible, invoking "the guy who died on the cross," and finally, after a full 10 minutes of egregious proselytizing, ending his homily with, "We pray all things in the Name of Our Lord and Savior. Amen. God Bless You All."

Throughout Okino's entire Christian sermon, Chair Martin and Councilmembers sat in silent approval of Mr. Okino's message, thus participating in and sanctioning the discriminatory act against members of the public, both those in attendance and those watching the proceedings on television or the Internet, and doing nothing to stop or prevent the violation from occurring. Even more egregious, is the fact that Councilmembers can be heard greeting their former colleague with honorifics like "Reverend," "Monsignor", and "Bishop" as he approached the "pulpit."

The "Message of Aloha," which is included as an official agenda item, is at this point little more than a euphemism for Christian prayers, sermonizing, and proselytizing. Based on long-established legal precedent, sectarian prayers and other overtly religious actions that are sanctioned by government and carried out before members of the public violate both the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Honolulu City Council
• Gary Okino
• Ernie Martin
• Tulsi Gabbard
• Nestor Garcia
• Romy Cachola
• Breene Harimoto
• Tom Berg
• Ann Kobyashi
• Stanley Chang
• Mitch Kahle
• HCSSC
• Constitution
• Constitutional Violation
• Establishment Clause
• Legislative
• Christian
• Prayer
• Sermonizing
• Proselytizing
• DIscrimination

[MitchKahle]

"Ernest Y. Martin" emartin@honolulu.gov

[MitchKahle]

If you would like to complain about this, contact:

"Ernest Y. Martin" emartin at honolulu dot gov

Honolulu City Council

530 S. King Street, Room 202

Honolulu, Hawaii 96813

[phrekmon]

Right on Gary !

[808NSSN3]

I Think what your doing is very uncalled for. Why cant you mind your own buisness like every other person that comes to hawaii? You should mind your own buisness(I say this in the nicest way) and take all of this activist stuff you speak of back to the mainland where you originated from, Im sorry but this is not the mainland. Also please stop twisting around things people talk about god in court or even school oaths. Why do you have to stir up pilikia(trouble)?

From,

Native of Hawaii

[KnoaWyls]

This shit blows my mind and it goes on every single day throughout the US.

[theillustrated]

Keep your unquantifiable, un-measurable, un-provable beliefs and their resultant sweeping statements out of government.