Date: Fri, 23 Dec 94 15:33:32 HST
From: <ramsey@math.hawaii.edu>

			      HAWAII, DECEMBER 23, 1994
			FEDERAL JUDGE FONG REMOVES CATHOLIC
                    AND MORMON REPRESENTATIVES FROM COMMISSION
                         ON SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND THE LAW

	Thursday morning, Dec. 21, Federal Judge Harold Fong heard a
motion for a temporary restraining order on the work of the Commission
on Sexual Orientation and the Law.  The motion was filed by a fundamentalist
Catholic and a minister of the Assembly of God.  At 11:30 am, Dec. 23, Judge
Fong issued his decision:
        1)  He accepted their complaint that having representatives of
            the Catholic and Mormon churches on the commission (and named
            as such) violated the separation of church and state.  He ordered
            the 2 Catholic representatives and 2 Mormon representatives
            removed from the commission.  The 2 AFSC members were allowed
            to stay, because AFSC is independent of the Quakers (the
            Society of Friends) and in fact has many non-Quaker members
            (AFSC:  American Friends Service Committee).
        2)  He accepted their plea for standing as taxpayers of the state
            because the commission, although consisting entirely of unpaid
            volunteers, has staff support from the Legislative Reference
            Bureau (an agency which does research for the legislature).
        3)  He rejected all their other complaints; in particular, the
            commission will continue to do its work.

        This leaves the commission with a quorum of 7 members, 6 of whom
are known to support full civil rights for gays and lesbians:  2 from
HERMP, 2 from the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission, and 2 from AFSC.  The
seventh commission member is Judge Kimura (retired), a well-known civil
libertarian.

	Judge Fong made clear that the governor could appoint 4 new commission
members, who could incidentally be of a certain religion, but could not
(officially) represent that religion on the commission.

	HERMP had earlier, and publicly, complained about the naming of
specific religions to the commission---ignoring many Protestant groups,
the numerous Buddhists in Hawaii, etc.  However, we choose to let the
commission do its work and not waste money on challenging the religious
representatives.  Frankly, some supporters of HERMP feel that the
fundamentalists have just done some of their work for them.

	The fundamentalists may have hoped to stop the commission's work
temporarily, while the fundamentalists prepared more elaborate legal
challenges.  In particular, if the AFSC representatives had been removed
from the commission, the commission would have been left without a quorum
and its work delayed.  However, the fundamentalists didn't understand the
difference between AFSC and the Society of Friends (to be honest, most
people don't know the difference). 

	Judge Fong's decision is perhaps the best Christmas present that
could have been made---Mahalo!!!!!


					Tom Ramsey
					Secretary
					HERMP Steering Committee

P.S.  It's not too late to make a 1994-tax-deductible contribution to
GLCC/HERMP, 1820 University Ave., Room 8, Honolulu, HI 96822.  Even
$5 makes a difference (we are constantly making do with next to nothing).