Hare Krishnas Get Permit for Cart Festival

August 10, 2002
San Francisco, CA

The City Council yesterday awarded a permit for the local Hare Krishna center to use a military tank for its annual cart festival in Golden Gate Park. An applications for a permit for a caravan of armored Humvees with roof mounted automatic rifle turrets for Hare Krishna gurus to ride in down the parade route was denied, however.

The organization's spokeswoman, Annoutami Devi Dasi, 23, told reporters, "We think updating our traditional chariot to the modern version of the chariot for Their Lordships to ride on will help the conditioned souls relate to our mission, as well as show our support for the president's anti-terrorist campaign. As far as the armored vehicles for our leaders, that was just a standard security measure, but the city does not agree. But they are just in maya. If some stalker wants to take a shot at a guru with a handgun, the guru has every right to have his secretary fire back with an automatic weapon.

"Okay, I know what you're thinking, some innocent bystanders might get gunned down in the spray of bullets, but hey that's not really so bad, because they get to go back to Godhead because they will be having darshan of Shree Jagannath, Shree Baladev and Shreematee Subhadra at the time. And who knows they could even be an Al Qaeda agent, so it would be killing two birds with one stone. We plan to appeal to the White House over this."

Apparently the city offered to make a concession and let the gurus ride in caravan of vehicles with bullet proof glass bubbles so they can wave to the crowds, like the Pope uses, and a bodyguard with a registered handgun accompanying each one, but the offer was rejected by the Krishnas, who stand firm in their request.