Kirk Cashmere

American lawyer

Kirk H. Cashmere (July 18, 1955 – December 2, 2002) was a prominent civil rights attorney who helped make same sex marriage a major issue in Hawaii, as well as a historian and pioneer of organized Judaism in the state.

Born on July 18, 1955, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, his family moved to Hawaii when he was 5 years old. He attended the Iolani School and earned a degree in Near Eastern and Judaic studies at Brandeis University. As a member of the "Governor's Committee on HIV/AIDS," he played a central role in formulating policy that would at once protect the public from unsafe exposure and maintain the confidence of carriers.

In 1984 and 1986, he filed suit against the Marine Corps to remove a 65 foot cross at Camp Holland M. Smith in Honolulu. Plaintiffs in the suit alleged that the cross is a religious symbol that violates the First Amendment. The cross had been erected for an Easter service in 1966, but naval officials argued it was a non religious monument to prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action. Naval Admiral Judge Advocate T. E. Flynn decided to remove the cross in 1986, but that decision was overturned by Marine Corps commandant General Paul Kelley in 1987. In 1988, federal district court Judge Thomas Hogan ordered the cross to be removed.

On November 14, 1988, he challenged the state's Good Friday holiday as a violation of the U. S. Constitution's First Amendment and the Hawaii State Constitution. The case was decided on August 9, 1991.

On May 1, 1991, the plaintiffs filed a complaint in the First Circuit Court of Hawaii that the Hawaii Marriage Law was unconstitutional because it prohibited issuing a marriage license on the sole basis of same sex. Cashmere was Lambda Legal Defense's local counsel and co authored the amicus brief. Circuit Judge Kevin Chang ruled that the state failed to prove a "compelling reason" to ban same sex marriages.