UPDATE: After national outrage, the bullies have backed off.
After calling church sermons “fair game” or subpoena, Houston Mayor Annise Parker backed down Wednesday from the city’s effort to force local pastors to turn over speeches and papers related to a hotly contested transgender rights ordinance.
The city had asked five pastors for “all speeches, presentations, or sermons” on a variety of topics, including the mayor, and “gender identity.”
The subpoena prompted a storm of criticism when it became public Tuesday.
……The pastors and their allies called the city’s broad demand a threat to religious freedom and proof that gay and transgender rights bills can be used as weapons to demonize Christianity.
“The government has no business asking pastors to turn over their sermons,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican.
……Parker’s office initially doubled down in the face of such criticism but issued a statement late Wednesday saying the mayor “agrees with those who are concerned about the city legal department’s subpoenas for pastors’ sermons.”
The statement says the city will “move to narrow the scope during an upcoming court hearing” and that city attorney David Feldman says the focus “should be only on communications related to the petitions to overturn the ordinance.”
Joe La Rue, legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has moved to quash the subpoenas, called the mayor’s turnaround “wholly inadequate.”
He noted that the city still appears to want some sermons and other documents related to the lawsuit over the petition drive, which the city rejected after saying too many of the signatures were “invalid”.
“Those sermons, emails, and texts have nothing to do with whether the coalition gathered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot,” Mr. La Rue said.
……According to a press conference Ms. Parker gave Wednesday, “the goal” of the subpoena” was “to find out if there were specific instructions given on how the petitions should be accurately filled out. It’s not about, ‘What did you preach on last Sunday?’”
That’s bullshit on stilts. Parker would never have pulled that egregious abuse of power if the petition didn’t challenge the leftwing idiocy of “transgender” bathroom use.
The subpoena controversy has erupted amid a battle over the ordinance, passed by the City Council in May, which allows people to use public bathrooms designated for use by the opposite sex. The measure is aimed at prohibiting discrimination based on “gender identity,” which is now a “protected characteristic” under Houston law.
A pastor-led coalition opposed to the ordinance submitted about 50,000 signatures, three times the number required, to force a voter referendum on the issue. Even so, Mr. Feldman ruled the petitions insufficient as a result of “irregularities,” which prompted four people to file a lawsuit challenging his decision.
Original story:
Your leftwing government at work.
From Fox News.
The city of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding a group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker, the city’s first openly lesbian mayor. And those ministers who fail to comply could be held in contempt of court.
“The city’s subpoena of sermons and other pastoral communications is both needless and unprecedented,” Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Christina Holcomb said in a statement. “The city council and its attorneys are engaging in an inquisition designed to stifle any critique of its actions.”
ADF, a nationally-known law firm specializing in religious liberty cases, is representing five Houston pastors. They filed a motion in Harris County court to stop the subpoenas arguing they are “overbroad, unduly burdensome, harassing, and vexatious.”
“Political and social commentary is not a crime,” Holcomb said. “It is protected by the First Amendment.”
The subpoenas are just the latest twist in an ongoing saga over the Houston’s new non-discrimination ordinance. The law, among other things, would allow men to use the ladies room and vice versa. The city council approved the law in June.
The Houston Chronicle reported opponents of the ordinance launched a petition drive that generated more than 50,000 signatures – far more than the 17,269 needed to put a referendum on the ballot.
However, the city threw out the petition in August over alleged irregularities.
Translation: “irregularities” incompatible with the local LeftProg bigots.
After opponents of the bathroom bill filed a lawsuit the city’s attorneys responded by issuing the subpoenas against the pastors.
The pastors were not part of the lawsuit. However, they were part of a coalition of some 400 Houston-area churches that opposed the ordinance. The churches represent a number of faith groups – from Southern Baptist to non-denominational.
“City council members are supposed to be public servants, not ‘Big Brother’ overlords who will tolerate no dissent or challenge,” said ADF attorney Erik Stanley. “This is designed to intimidate pastors.”
Mayor Parker will not explain why she wants to inspect the sermons. I contacted City Hall for a comment and received a terse reply from the mayor’s director of communications.
“We don’t comment on litigation,” said Janice Evans.
However, ADF attorney Stanley suspects the mayor wants to publicly shame the ministers. He said he anticipates they will hold up their sermons for public scrutiny. In other words – the city is rummaging for evidence to “out” the pastors as anti-gay bigots.
Homosexuals, er, I mean gays, lesbians, LGBTs or whatever the fuck they’re calling themselves now, are some of the worst bigots on the planet.
Among those slapped with a subpoena is Steve Riggle, the senior pastor of Grace Community Church. He was ordered to produce all speeches and sermons related to Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality and gender identity.
The mega-church pastor was also ordered to hand over “all communications with members of your congregation” regarding the non-discrimination law.
“This is an attempt to chill pastors from speaking to the cultural issues of the day,” Riggle told me. “The mayor would like to silence our voice. She’s a bully.”
Rev. Dave Welch, executive director of the Texas Pastor Council, also received a subpoena. He said he will not be intimidated by the mayor.
“We’re not afraid of this bully,” he said. “We’re not intimidated at all.”
He accused the city of violating the law with the subpoenas and vowed to stand firm in the faith.
“We are not going to yield our First Amendment rights,” Welch told me. ‘This is absolutely a complete abuse of authority.”
Let me get this straight: The leftwingnut government bullies are harassing conservative pastors, but no one demands that the Marxist, muslim terrorist supporting, racist, anti-Semitic, Jeremiah (“God damn America”) Wright, turn over his rancid sermons for scrutiny before he spews hate from the pulpit.
The “Rev” Michael Pfleger, a good pal of Jeremiah’s, uses the pulpit for his own unique brand of similar hate filled rhetoric. No one has demanded that he fork over a copy of his diatribes.
But they’re leftwing douchebags, so it’s okay.
I wonder if any mosques and other radical muzzie organizations in the Houston area are scrutinized for the Islamofacist bullshit they preach, including jihad and the anti-gay violence they engage in, as proscribed in the Koran and the Hadith.
To quote Audrey Russo from Clash Daily:
Here’s a little advice for the LGBT movement: Why not spend LESS of your time bullying Christians, who don’t hate you…and instead, turn your efforts toward STOPPING the totalitarian ideology of Islam, who wants you dead.
Don’t count on it. Christians and Jews are preferable targets.
Related articles:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/hate_group_associations_disqualify_obama.html
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/04/28/cnns-soledad-rev-wright-speech-home-run
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_wright_0610jun10,0,7603283.story
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/DemocraticDebate/story?id=4443788&page=1
Your statement, “Don’t count on it. Christians and Jews are preferable targets.” Hits the nail on the head. It’s small wonder displays of cowardice is often referred to as acting like a fag.