Posted on 10/21/2014 8:04:30 AM PDT by Kaslin
Houston recently passed an ordinance through its city council that has sparked quite a bit of controversy amongst conservative evangelicals. The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), a broad-sweeping, left-leaning law trumpeted by the City of Houston and its openly gay mayor, Annise Parker, is supposed to protect gay, lesbian and transgender people from discrimination. All well and good, but according to the Independent Journal Review, the ordinance to ensure nondiscrimination, discriminates against those of faith who oppose it.
Five pastors, members of Houston's conservative, evangelical base, oppose HERO, as does the liberal Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the pastors aren't being too quiet about it. They're circulating petitions and gathering signatures in an attempt to get the law repealed. The City of Houston came up with a way to get them to stop. It issued subpoenas for pastors to turn over "All speeches, presentations, or sermons related to HERO, the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by your or in your possession," so that it could, according to Time.com, "determine how the preachers instructed their congregants in their push to get the law repealed."
No one was surprised when the pastors filed suit.
The blowback to the subpoenas was so intense that last Friday, the City of Houston backpedaled and dropped the word "sermon" from the subpoena, as well as "...requests for pastors' teachings on sexuality and gender identity." The city still wants to see all the speeches, presentations, documents, text messages and emails that relate to the pastors' work to get HERO repealed, though.
Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general, and a Republican candidate for governor, sent a letter to Mayor Parker's office requesting she immediately drop the subpoena requests. As reported on Christianitytoday.com, he wrote: "Government officials must exercise the utmost care when our work touches on religious matters. Your aggressive and invasive subpoenas show no regard for the very serious First Amendment considerations at stake." Amen to that, brother!
The subpoenas are censorship pure and simple and they blur the line of demarcation that is supposed to separate church from state. How can the City of Houston's actions be seen any other way by anyone right- or left-leaning, evangelical or secular?
Of course, after the outcry, Mayor Parker, broke out the politicians' primer and issued a well-crafted statement that said the subpoenas were "overly broad" and would be amended. News flash, Mayor Parker. Still censorship. Tossing a few deck chairs off the Titanic didn't stop the ship from sinking and deleting a few words from an "overly broad" subpoena won't make it anything other than what it is -- religious intimidation.
In their lawsuit, the pastors claim the mayor's office unfairly and possibly illegally denied their petition to have HERO considered as a ballot referendum, alleging many of the 50,000 signatures on a petition -- triple the amount required -- were illegible or not verifiable.
Dr. Ed Young, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Houston, jokingly tells me he is "happy" to send his sermons to the mayor and has done so voluntarily in the past as a form of what Baptists call "witnessing to the Gospel of Christ." He says he did not receive a subpoena. The key word here is "voluntarily."
For a government official to try to intimidate or censor speech from the pulpit, or any other form of communication, is clearly unconstitutional and this effort by Houston's mayor should not survive a single court challenge.
This has been going on since Nero with varying levels of success. Vigilance required.
How does this idiot mayor think this censorship would ever be upheld in the courts? The city attorney should be disbarred for ever supporting this BS
Liberals are ‘FASCISTS’.
Only ‘their’ beliefs are allowed!
Good question, and exactly
Although because of the 1st Amendment, it did stop or did not last long in America during these past few centuries.
This is why you have the “2nd”, which protects the other “9”.
If your town or city elects an open, practicing, militant lesbian as mayor it’s not worth saving.
If you were waiting for a message you just got one.
Time to pack up and move to a place where sanity still prevails.
Look for those ministers to start looking.
This is why you have the “2nd”, which protects the other “9”.
Why do we have to have a permit to exercise the “2nd” but not the others?
Give it time. Soon you’ll need a permit to give your opinion.
She doesn’t think she can win - she is tying them up in red tape trying to scare them into backing down.
One might want to look at the court episode unfolding and how a Texas judge will sit there and bring ministers into court, and then realize that they can start sermonizing their entire commentary....bringing in witnesses to also sermonize, and create a monkey-court of the whole thing. I’m just curious which judge will see this as a mess and he gets him removed from the unfolding episode.
All of this will play out with Latino voters in the city, who are possible Democrats but also strong-church-going members. If you ask me....they really screwed up the city elections in 2016, and created a huge pit for the mayor and city council to fall into.
Am glad these pastors are fighting back and making an issue of their being intimidated. It needs to happen more often.
Of course, if Houston had a mosque preaching jihad against all non-Muslims--I'm sure the Mayor would be just as "outraged"! /s
My guess is that the direction this will go is to deny/rescind the tax exempt status of churches that don't "toe the line"...
If these were black churches, Eric Holder would be suing the City of Houston. Why can’t Abbott sue? Is he afraid of controversy before the election?
The same reason obamacare was upheld by the courts. The same reason the sham of same sex “marriage” was upheld by the courts. If you are depending on the courts, you are depending on a broke stick. The Left is now in full control of the courts.
Now the militant homosexuals have done this in over 10 or 15 states and now they can audit, restrict and shut down any church they want with the right judge. They win, Christians loose, will Christians ever get up off their asses and fight?
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