While using a library computer May 18 to access Gay Hawaii, a travel and information website for the gay community, Carlos Hernandez was interrupted by a security guard who told him the site was pornographic and that he would have to leave the library and not return for one year, the Honolulu Advertiser reported September 8.
The Center, a nonprofit organization that is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit and offers services to the gay community, complained to the library administration after the incident, but an official told them the guard issued the warning because the website contained photographs of men without shirts.
The ACLU lawsuit charges that the statute used by the security guard—Act 50, also known as the “squatters law”—is unconstitutional. Signed into law May 4, Act 50 was originally intended as a way to remove homeless people living on Mokuleia beaches. It allows any authorized individual to ban someone from public property for up to one year by issuing a warning statement, although the statute does not define what kind of conduct would justify such action.
“This law gives unbridled discretion to police and others to engage in arbitrary and capricious denials of protected expression based on nothing more than their individual prejudices and predilections,” said ACLU Legal Director Lois K. Perrin.
Posted September 10, 2004.