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Friday, February 14, 2014
How They Voted: House Rejects Religious Freedom Restoration Act
By Hawaii Family Advocates @ 4:15 PM :: 7934 Views :: First Amendment, Religion

Religious Freedom Restoration Act (HB 1624)

From Hawaii Family Advocates, February 14, 2014

Dear Supporter of Religious Liberty,

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.

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 Representative, please CLICK HERE. Thank you for reading all of this.  You and I must take back our government.  It does not respect us.

Jim Hochberg

President

Hawaii Family Advocates

(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

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