Moanalua High School students in the award-winning orchestra have proudly raised $200,000 over the last 6 years through their annual holiday concert.
These students, who have performed at Carnegie Hall in New York three times, don’t keep the money to buy new instruments, travel abroad or help their school.
Instead, they send $30,000 they raise every year overseas to a well-known charity, Mercy Ships, which is current housing American doctors in Africa on a medical mission. These doctors help the poorest of residents – some who have never seen a doctor – with urgent medical and dental needs.
It is the students’ gift to the world during the holidays and their chance to make difference for others in need.
The seventh annual fundraiser was set for this weekend, and students have been practicing for months to ensure their performance was perfect.
But an atheist activist, who has shown up to protest city hall Christmas tree lighting ceremonies as well as city council hearings and legislative events where there is prayer, has turned up as their Christmas Grinch and put a stop to the kids’ best-laid plans just hours before the show.
Mitch Kahle, founder of Hawaii Residents for Separation of Church and State, wrote a letter to the Department of Education on “Freedom from Religion Foundation” stationary on December 3 demanding state officials stop the concert. He claimed the public high school was in cahoots with New Hope, one of Hawaii’s largest Christian churches.
It’s true that some of the New Hope parishioners volunteered to sell tickets or work on the set. But the concert is run by school staff and features its students, and tickets are sold both on campus and by phone. One hundred percent of the proceeds go to Mercy Ships. Historically, Mercy Ships, which has been the beneficiary of the concert for 4 years, used the $30,000 from Moanalua’s concert to get another $30,000 from matching donors.
“People are assuming this is a New Hope event when it is not. They cancelled a high school event,” said Chad Brownstein, a volunteer with the concert, graduate of the school and employee of New Hope.
“For the people at New Hope, this not an issue because they (activists) are not fighting against New Hope. But the students had practiced and rehearsed and were excited to do it.”
Michael W. Perry, Hawaii’s best-known radio talk show host, has been covering the controversy extensively on his morning show on KSSK, a Clear Channel station.
“It is an unfortunate situation in which one person writing one letter to the DOE has disrupted a $30,000 fundraiser going on for 6 years now, and for what reason? He claims the Constitution says there can be no involvement with school and church and there is no such statement in the Constitution,” Perry said.
Donalyn Dela Cruz, director of Communications for the DOE, said the decision announced Monday to cancel the Friday concert was made by the DOE after consultation with the Attorney General’s office.
“The Department applauds both the students who were hoping to provide this concert, as well as the charitable purpose behind it. However, after some consideration, the Department realized that the concert could have been better structured,” Dela Cruz said.
Kahle is Hawaii’s only well known atheist who makes God an issue.
He’s protested the police department using the words “so help me God” in their oath of office, and got the Honolulu Police Department to remove the words from the oath in September 2002.
On his web site, Kahle proclaims proudly under a cartoon poking fun at the police, that “God Gets the Boot!”
Kahle appears to enjoy the media attention, because he has his media mentions posted prominently throughout his web site dating back for several years including the most exposure he’s had in an interview with Bill O’Reilly on Fox’s O’Reilly Factor.
But besides threatening letters that on occasion are backed by the ACLU, and the tantrums he’s thrown at city hall and the legislature when God is mentioned, Kahle has had few actual legal successes.
His group is made up of a handful of atheists who want God banished from the planet. One of his main sidekicks is his wife Holly Huber.
Kahle doesn’t win in court so much as he gets his way by getting people in government to simply bend to his wishes through bullying and threats.
He has intimidated Senate leadership into cancelling its daily prayer during the 60-working day session.
He’s pushed the Honolulu City Council leadership into cancelling only prayer a month typically held before its monthly meeting.
He’s harassed the military until it took a cross down from its property.
And when loved ones lost their family members on Mothers’ Day, May 9, 1999, during a tragic land slide at Sacred Falls park, and they posted eight small crosses by the roadside in remembrance, Kahle insisted the state remove them from the public sidewalk.
Kahle also takes credit for getting Boy Scouts programs and oath restricted on public school campuses in 2002, getting the phrase “I believe in God” removed from Navy youth cards, as well as getting “God Bless America “removed from the tax department and health department facilities shortly after the 9-11-2001 terrorist attack on America.
“I guess it is not a career enhancing move to have your government agency sued, because you stood up to this guy, but someone needs to,” said KSSK’s Perry.
“The DOE is in ‘duck and cover mode’ because of one guy and one letter. There are all kinds of organizations that would be happy to take him on and win. But he wins because they quickly capitulate.”
Perry, who emcees the City Hall Christmas Tree lighting celebration, experienced Kahle’s protests firsthand when Kahle, in front of thousands of children, tried to shout down the Buddhist and Christian religious leaders offering prayers ahead of the tree lighting.
When Perry took the stage, he told the children that “someone probably wouldn’t be getting a visit from Santa Claus”, and their laughter drowned out his Kahle’s protests.
“It is infuriating, this one little gnat keeps buzzing around. That one person who just uses threats can get his way and stop something that will really help people in need.”
There have been government officials who have stood up to Kahle.
House Speaker Calvin Say, a Democrat who represents Palolo, refused to ban prayer in the House of Representatives’ daily sessions even after Senate’s Democrat leadership capitulated.
Despite the ban on prayer in the Senate, Senate Minority Leader Sam Slom also rebuts Kahle’s demands by mentioning God every day in his closing remarks. Kahle is often there with his wife filming Slom.
While the student concert will not go on, New Hope will try to make up for the $30,000 that was promised Mercy Ships, by holding its own concert on Friday, December 7.
The event will take place at 290 Sand Island Access Road at 7:30 p.m.
Ticket holders to The Gift of Hope Charity Concert may use those tickets to attend the New Hope concert. Refunds from the Moanalua Winter program are also available Friday night at New Hope’s weekend services or at Moanalua High School. Brownstein said all refunds unclaimed after December 21st will be donated to Mercy Ships.
More on the web
https://www.enewhope.org/news/000768/
Yeah, an atheist points out a blatantly unlawful act committed by a school and gets to be made "the bad guy".
It really astounds me how people can't figure out how illegal and morally reprehensible it is to mix religion and government, but it also bothers me to great extent that people are blind to the fact that these religious groups can do perfecly fine without the government (and vice versa). When it's in the constitution that the congress shall make no law respecting an extablishment of religion, and the country is practically filled with megachurches taking in millions of dollars from tithing etc., why are the religious groups seeking to sneak their religion into the government? But more importantly, who are the administrators who are letting these sorts of actions happen in the first place?
This story would be completely different if it was a muslim group doing a clearly muslim event.
These religious groups have pushed for decades to gain special privilages they should never have had in the first place. But that time is ending. Why do you think that secular groups win pretty much every single case with a similar setup? It must be in God's Big Master Plan ™.
(And BTW, New Hope kept the concert privately on their own without mingling with any public schools – something that they should've done all along)
Separation of church and state: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.
Yes, those exact words were used by the Supreme Court in 1879 (and several times since). The court heard arguments about the intention of the establishment clause and used documents from our nation's founders to hold that the intention of that clause was the separation of church and state.
You may not like it, but separation of church and state (those exact words) is the law of the land, and, as that decision demonstrated, was the intention of the establishment clause since the founding of our government.
Why are we allowing one atheist ruin all the Christmas across the USA? You are not the only city to have this problem. I just don't understand why we are allowing them to keep us from our freedoms. They don't have to listen or even partisipate., they just need to go away and do whatever they enjoy. I do not understand why the whole country is letting this happen. Makes me very upset.
Ruin all the Christmas??? Are you serious, or just trolling?
As an individual, no one is preventing you from celebrating Christmas. No one is asking you to remove a Christmas display from your home, yard, or church. It is illegal for the government to endorse a particular religion. You know, that whole pesky separation of church and state being the law of the land and all.
A church band has every right to play a concert to raise money for Christian missionary work, and nobody is trying to stop any such thing. A public school, an arm of the government, however, cannot hold a concert to raise money for Christian missionary work. You know, that whole separation of church and state thing, which is law in the United States of America.
The school was breaking the law. That should not be allowed in a law-abiding nation.
This site says the author is the Hawaiian Reporter. To whoever actually put words down, please know that if anyone ever tells you you are a fair and unbiased reporter… he lies. Getting only one side and slanting that viciously is a hatchet job, nothing more, nothing less.
Congratulations. You are the future of media.
This is one nation under God if you don't like it get the Hell out of it… And i by no means am religious
Separation of church and state is the law in this nation. If you don't like it, get the hell out or change it using the legal process given to us by the United States constitution.
To those of you that pointed out the poor journalistic style of this article, Hawaii Reporter offers "news *and* opinion". Too bad they don't tell you which is which. It is only "fair and balanced" when you agree with it. 🙂
I'm not an Atheist but rather somewhere between a Deist and an Agnostic. In principle I agree with Mitch Kahle though I do dislike his methods. He comes across more as "I hate Christianity" than he does about a valid concern for "separation for church and state". Though Mercy Ships seems to be a worthwhile charity, the State DOE should have done more due diligence before agreeing to allow the benefit concert on state property.
I suspect Kahle's actions here have backfired. The widespread press and discussion that his actions have brought about have merely acted to generate more positive attention to both the the concern and the Mercy Ships charity. Thanks, Mitch, for helping point out someplace I can donate some money.
Point taken about DOE should have vetted on this & Kahle's agenda against Christians is evident in HNN's 5/20/12 report on HSCS's other "justified lawsuit' @ https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/17206492/group…
Even the new HPA director Hakim Ouansafi, who seems to be of another religion, is reluctant to go through with it.
Check this out.
First, to the obvious ignorant, atheism is NOT a religion. A-theism, as in not religious. Religion is the belief in a god. Atheists know that gods don't exist. Next, this is a very slanted article. He doesn't bully. If you don't like his points, you obviously aren't a fan of the constitution. You can't use a public school event to raise money for a church. Churches get away with so much and it sickens me. Mr. Kahle should be commended for his bravery in standing up for this stuff. Not everyone shares everyone's belief. So when religious acts are done, it not only makes people of other faiths and atheists feel not welcome, but at times, belittled. That's why it isn't allowed. So when people "look past it," thankfully there are those like Mr. Kahle who step in to point the error in their ways.
And as someone who grew up in a Catholic house hold, if I were still a Christian, I would be so disappointed in some of you. Wishing harm upon a man for standing up for his beliefs is very unChristian. Try to practice what you preach and live by the bible, not behind it, cowards. Aside from all the fairy tales, it actually has some good life lessons that you can live by to may yourself a better person to you fellow man.
To the otherwise good people of Moanalua:
To those who think there is nothing wrong with the DOE sponsoring an overtly religious concert – the purpose of which is to raise money for an overtly religious charity, I have a few questions:
1) With all the people in favor of this concert and sectarian fund-raising, why isn't this being done by some private religious institution or church? Why is this being done on the taxpayer's dime and with the endorsement of the tate? Surely you all don't need to be subsidized by the State?
2) What's the difference between this event and the DOE (or State) just giving $30K to this missionary organization and why is that not allowed?
3) What is more important to you: Our shared Constitution and the rule of law – or your personal/private holy book and scripture?
4) Are you not ashamed of yourselves for the disrespect you are showing for our Constitution and all those who have given their lives to defend this secular and godless document? You should be.
What an amazingly mean-spirited and poorly written hatchet job by the HawaiiReporter. I've had the pleasure and honor of meeting Mitch Kahle and his wife Holly several times over the past few years. They are brave and honorable people who are standing up for the Constitutional principle of separation of State and Church.
It´s funny that this reporter considers himself a "reporter"….Shouldn´t you just report news and not comment the news?
Point out where did this reporter "comment" on this & HNN's 5/20/12 report on HSCS's other "justified lawsuit' @ https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/17206492/group…
Thanks.
The church is just the venue. It's a building. If members of the church want to assist with promoting the event and the good it does, more power to em'. Everyone loses here…the band members, who have worked so hard…the community…who supports what the band does…and the doctors, who give up so much to assist the people of Africa. Karma's a bitch.
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