For nearly five years, James Borden has been a fixture of Kinoole Street. ADVERTISING For nearly five years, James Borden has been a fixture of Kinoole Street. He first began parking his truck at Lincoln Park in 2010 in order
For nearly five years, James Borden has been a fixture of Kinoole Street.
He first began parking his truck at Lincoln Park in 2010 in order to display handmade signs, after spending two weeks at the Federal Building (“It wasn’t a good location,” he said) and later being asked to leave the Tribune-Herald premises.
The signs’ messages have ranged from anti-President Obama invectives and anti-Islam rhetoric to a more recent anti-abortion focus, the latter a result of what Borden recently deemed a “spiritual prompting.”
Some Hilo residents ignore the signs, others shout disapproval. The messages have been described, in various letters to the Tribune-Herald, as “spewing hate and ignorance instead of aloha,” “appalling and wretched” and “disturbed.”
Other letter-writers have pointed out that, while they may not agree with the messages or their placement in the community, both fall within the First Amendment right to free speech.
Borden, 65, does not plan to leave the parking spots, or the park — where he has set up the Yahweh Lincoln Park Ministry — anytime soon.
Over the years, complaints have been consistent to the Parks and Recreation department and to the police. Parks and Recreation director Clayton Honma said Tuesday that they had increased over the past year.
“As long as he’s following the rules of our park, everyone is welcome in our park whenever it’s open,” Honma said. The parking area itself is not under the department’s jurisdiction.
Lincoln Park’s regulations address “typical use of the park, as opposed to First Amendment or protest action, because that’s rare,” said department public information officer Jason Armstrong.
Posting religious materials such as a tall cross, on the taxpayer-funded park’s fence, is a different First Amendment matter. Honma said that Parks and Recreation employees ask Borden to take the materials down, but they do not have enforcement authorization.
“We do rely on the police to enforce our rules at our parks,” he said.
Parks and Recreation operates 200 facilities countywide. Armstrong said he wasn’t aware of other locations where similar situations unfolded.
“Thank God we have a First Amendment,” Borden said. “The First Amendment is in place so people like me can state our political and religious (views) and be protected by the government. Why have the First Amendment if you’re not going to use the First Amendment? Same thing with the Second Amendment.”
That right was taken to an extreme earlier this summer, when signs turned particularly graphic. A large image of a bloodied fetus prompted a “Take Back Lincoln Park” protest. State Rep. Joy SanBuenaventura denounced the signage on social media. But after a few days, the protesters and the signs of aloha left, and Borden, who is retired, remained.
“They’re not here anymore, are they?” he said. “I just do what I have to do … their slogan was ‘Take Back Lincoln Park,’ like I steal it.” He said people had been concerned about kids at the park, but that with the parking spaces taken up by protesters, kids couldn’t come anyway.
The sign came down after two weeks. “It served its purpose,” Borden said. “It got people’s attention, because that’s the reality of the situation.” Asked about the sign’s placement so close to a playground, he said that he had received “very good feedback” from children about the signage, because it had prompted empathy for the fetus.
“It’s not the children that have a problem with that, it’s the parents — not all parents — parents that have their own agenda,” he said.
“The real thrust in all the opposition is they either support Obama, abortion, Islam, homosexuality.”
Raised in a “conservative, Republican, Christian” household, Borden ran as an independent for a state Senate seat in Massachusetts at age 24.
He “saw a lot of corruption” and wanted to “bring the government to the people.”
Ronald Reagan was the last president who was “pretty good,” he said, and John F. Kennedy the last “100 percent patriotic” president (“and he got killed for it”).
These days Borden prefers to be “an outsider,” viewing politics as more corrupt than ever and opting to focus on his religious message.
“I don’t regret anything that we’ve done in the past,” he said.
“It was necessary and we’ve grown into our real focus.”
This, he said, is the goal of making Hilo an “abortion-free refuge,” an aim detailed in an action plan he typed out last weekend.
“Besides spreading the word of God, talking about the body of Christ,” he said.
“That’s quite an undertaking in itself.” He is hoping other religious organizations will become involved in the abortion-free refuge effort as well.
A born-again Christian since age 22, Borden said he became an ordained minister about a year ago, and that he gets his teachings through the Bible and the Holy Ghost. He believes it was a calling from the latter that pushed him to the anti-abortion movement. This, he said, is hard for nonbelievers to understand.
“That’s, I think, one of the reasons my focus has shifted from politics to Christianity. What really matters for people today is where they’re going to spend eternity. That’s where we’re at today,” he said.
Being known as “that guy” appears to be a nonissue.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Borden said, adding that any suffering he experienced paled in comparison to what Jesus went through.
“It comes with the territory.”
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
