{"id":56,"date":"2010-04-02T15:02:44","date_gmt":"2010-04-02T15:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/2010\/04\/lax-grounds-hare-krishnas.html"},"modified":"2010-04-02T15:02:44","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T15:02:44","slug":"lax-grounds-hare-krishnas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2010\/04\/lax-grounds-hare-krishnas.html","title":{"rendered":"LAX Grounds Hare Krishnas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is it the end of an era? After a 13-year battle with the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) for the right to distribute Hindu religious literature, Hare Krishna (ISKCON) devotees may finally have to throw in the towel. A California Supreme Court ruling earlier this week effectively banned the Vaishnava Hindu group from their airport gig… and raised a lot of questions about the reaches and limits of First Amendment free speech protection.<\/p>\n

Full disclosure: I am a Vaishnava Hindu member of ISKCON myself– a full-fledged Hare Krishna. I also do volunteer work for that organization’s Office of Communications. And I happen to be an attorney, who studied a fair share of Constitutional Law — specifically as applied to religious organizations — in Law School.      <\/p>\n

In other words, I’m still working on this one.<\/p>\n

\"HK_distributingbooks.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>In the mean time, here’s how my friend and long-time Beliefnet contributor Lavina Melwani describes it on her blog, “Lassi with Lavina”<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

It was a bit like a floating library of Vedantic literature – and
\nnow it’s shutting down, or is being grounded, if you want to take the
\nairport analogy a bit further.  For the last four decades, the Hare
\nKrishnas, as the followers of International Society for Krishna
\nConsciousness<\/span> (ISKCON<\/span>) are popularly known, were a fixture in American
\nairports.<\/p>\n

Heads shaved, clad in orange and white robes, they would cluster in
\nbusy terminals, waving Vedic literature at rushing passengers,
\nsometimes singing and dancing in kirtan.  Now their spiritual take-off
\nhas been canceled – a California Supreme Court<\/span> ruling prohibits the
\nHare Krishnas from soliciting passengers at Los Angeles International
\nAirport<\/span> (LAX).<\/p>\n

Distributing literature and requesting donations have long been
\nregarded as free speech but the Court ruled that the LAX restriction is
\nconstitutional, and that the Hare Krishna<\/span> activities were impeding
\ntraffic in a busy airport and also posed a security problem.<\/p>\n

“Our reaction is disappointment because it limits our ability to
\ncontact people and share our faith and spiritual literature,” says
\nAnuttama Dasa, who is a Governing Body Commissioner for ISKCON.  “We
\nbelieve these teachings offer valuable contributions in helping us to
\ngain peace within ourselves and peace in the world.”<\/p>\n

(Read the full interview, and share your comments, here<\/span><\/a>…)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As for me? Still processing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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He is a Hindu Chaplain and the Coordinator for Hindu Life at Princeton University, and serves as the North American Director of Communications for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a worldwide organization representing the Vaishnava Hindu tradition. In previous incarnations, Vineet has been a New York City prosecutor, a cable TV show host, and a hospital chaplain. In his free time, he enjoys relaxing with his wife and his new baby, attending classes at The Bhakti Center, and teaching himself photography. As a second-generation, Indian-American, Vaishnava-Hindu, Vineet ponders new ways of further hyphenating his identity.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/author\/vchander"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/207"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}