Hey, wait a minute! The bluer than blue state of Hawai’i has Republican anti-gay New Hope pastor Elwin Ahu and Duke Aiona virtually tied with the Democratic candidates, David Ige and Shan Tsutsui?
Yikes!
According to Ahu who is “Senior Pastor” at New Hope Metro in Oahu this is why he’s running for Lt. Governor:
Witnessing a disregard for the people’s voices as the same-sex marriage special session unfolded last year, Elwin Ahu, a senior pastor at New Hope Metro, said Wednesday if he’s elected lieutenant governor, he will aim to re-establish and restore the people’s trust in government.
Since Ahu organized the busloads of anti marriage equality testifiers to disrupt and attempt to derail passing marriage equality in Hawaii, one assumes that he’ll “restore the people’s trust” by rolling back marriage equality.
Lot’s of luck with that!
Both Ahu and Aiona appear to support establishing a theocracy. When he filed to run, KHON TV reports:
Ahu reiterated an earlier statement he made in his candidacy that lawmakers are unfamiliar with the spirit of the preamble of the Constitution of Hawaii that states that the people of Hawaii be “grateful for Divine Guidance…”“…(Lawmakers) are not mindful of our Hawaiian heritage and the values that were established,” he said, as well as how divine guidance can be applied to the issues that confront today’s Hawaii. [emph added]
Ahu/Aiona campaign events look more like prayer meetings with attendees raising their hands and signing hymns. In one video posted to Ahu’s facebook page the person videoing can be heard saying, “It’s all about you Jesus and you will begin to do the work in these islands. Hallelujah” Ahu occasionally slips during campaign events and asks, “Can I get an amen?!”
It is unexpected that a Christian theocrat is so close to winning Hawaii’s second highest elected position given that our population is 38% Asian with a strong Japanese Buddhist presence. Of our two congresspeople and two senators half are Buddhists and one is Hindu.
But New Hope Ministries led by controversial figure, Wayne Cordeiro, has been growing fast. Part of their success appears to be their penchant for stiffing the Dept of Education for rental fees for services held at public schools.
They’ve also obtained lucrative contracts at prisons. According to Ahu,
“It’s not a separation of church and state. It’s a partnering up and using that as a means to reach the world for Christ and you, New Hope, have been instrumental in bridging that gap between church and state.”
The above quote occurs at 1:20 in the following video:
Ahu and his church made TV ads opposing marriage equality, asserting that the voters should decide whether gays can have equal rights:
The “Let the people decide” line was an attempt to postpone and derail marriage equality. With a strong Catholic and Mormon anti-gay population, these well-funded churches were able to stave off equality in a past statewide vote.
New Hope megachurch has expertise in video production that you can see in Ahu’s campaign videos and the above clip.
The national GOP is running nonstop ads for Ahu and Aiona. Aiona is running his own ads promising that he can solve the high cost of living in Hawaii but never exactly explaining how he’s going to achieve this miracle. Perhaps he’s been watching Pastor Ahu’s sermons on “God’s miracles today.”
While Pastor Ahu is praying the gay away, Aiona can pray the high cost of living away.
reprinted from DailyKos