Houston pastors subpoened for sermons

[dragon]

Ok now that is a serious misuse of power but should get smacked down fairly quickly.

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.

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.

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.”

Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, said pastors around the nation should rally around the Houston ministers.

“The state is breaching the wall of separation between church and state,” Perkins told me. ‘Pastors need to step forward and challenge this across the country. I’d like to see literally thousands of pastors after they read this story begin to challenge government authorities – to dare them to come into their churches and demand their sermons.”

Perkins called the actions by Houston’s mayor “obscene” and said they “should not be tolerated.”

“This is a shot across the bow of the church,” he said.

This is the moment I wrote about in my book, “God Less America.” I predicted that the government would one day try to silence American pastors. I warned that under the guise of “tolerance and diversity” elected officials would attempt to deconstruct religious liberty.

Sadly, that day arrived sooner than even I expected.

Tony Perkins is absolutely right. Now is the time for pastors and people of faith to take a stand. We must rise up and reject this despicable strong-arm attack on religious liberty. We cannot allow ministers to be intimidated by government thugs.

The pastors I spoke to tell me they will not comply with the subpoena – putting them at risk for a “fine or confinement, or both.”

Heaven forbid that should happen. But if it does, Christians across America should be willing to descend en masse upon Houston and join these brave men of God behind bars.

Pastor Welch compared the culture war skirmish to the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto, fought in present-day Harris County, Texas. It was a decisive battle of the Texas Revolution.

“This is the San Jacinto moment for traditional family,” Welch told me. “This is the place where we stop the LGBT assault on the freedom to practice our faith.”

We can no longer remain silent. We must stand together - because one day – the government might come for your pastor.

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[Channel72]

Crap... that will backfire badly, and just further feed the already out-of-control Christian persecution complex. Gay rights activists need to be careful with shit like this, because Evangelicals are just waiting for any excuse to cry persecution.

[Edi]

Why the fuck do people insist on posting this Fox News pearl clutching bullshit? Read the fucking Houston Chronicle article on the same thing, it's like fucking night and day between them!

[Borgholio]

From the Chronicle article, here is the most relevant clip:

City Secretary Anna Russell initially counted enough signatures to qualify the opponents' petition, with about 600 more than the required 17,269 signatures. Feldman then looked through all of the petition pages to see if those who gathered signatures met city charter requirements - namely, whether signature gatherers were Houston residents and whether they signed the petition pages.

That process disqualified more than half the 5,199 pages. In their suit, opponents claimed Russell's original count should be the most important one and alleged Feldman had inserted himself into the process illegally.

So there you have it. The pastors were allegedly using their sermons to collect illegal signatures to challenge a city ordinance. That can not be protected by freedom of speech or religion, since it is basically election fraud.

[dragon]

Except you have to be a subscriber of the Houston Chronicle to read the article but I read several other sites that read the same way.

But here is some more that supports what Fox says

The battle over a controversial equal rights ordinance is heating up in Houston, Texas, with revelations that the city has subpoenaed church sermons, among other documentation, from five local faith leaders.

Officials have requested that these preachers deliver communications that have focused on homosexuality or the contentious equal rights ordinance, which these individuals have fervently opposed.

The subpoenas, which were issued last month, seek, “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 you or in your possession,” according to the Houston Chronicle.

Parker, a lesbian, is the first openly gay mayor of a major U.S. city, as Religion News Services noted.
A PowerPoint slide describing a portion of the controversial ordinance (City of Houston)

A PowerPoint slide describing a portion of the controversial ordinance (City of Houston)

The move comes as the city of Houston is defending itself against a lawsuit brought by local activists and pastors who are seeking the suspension of the controversial ordinance.

The pastors who have had their sermons subpoenaed are not parties in the lawsuit, though they are part of a coalition of more than 400 preachers and churches in the Houston area who are opposed to portions of the city’s non-discrimination ordinance.

The ordinance, which passed in May, has been debated for months, as the new regulations would allow transgendered individuals to file complaints if they are denied restroom usage and would ban discrimination in both business and housing.

In a city document produced earlier this year to explain the purpose of the ordinance, Houston officials argued that the city is desperately in need of increased protections based on both “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”

“Houston is the only major metropolitan area in the country that does not prohibit discrimination in places of public accommodation. Additionally, there is no protection against discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,” the rationale read. “Houston believes that all persons living in or visiting the city are entitled to be treated with equal dignity, respect and status and have the right to be free from discriminatory and unequal treatment.”

After its passage, faith leaders decided to collect signatures to get the ordinance on a November ballot; they ended up with more than the 17,269 required names.

But after the city examined the documentation to see if signatories were Houston residents and had signed relevant pages — requirements for petitioning — they subsequently rejected a substantial number of the signatures, derailing activists’ and pastors’ attempts to bring the ordinance to a public vote.
A PowerPoint slide describing a portion of the controversial ordinance (City of Houston)

A PowerPoint slide describing a portion of the controversial ordinance (City of Houston)

Activists and faith leaders responded by suing the city, which is what, in turn, led officials to subpoena documents — including sermons — from some of the houses of worship linked to activists who have vocally opposed and worked against the ordinance.

“City council members are supposed to be public servants, not ‘Big Brother’ overlords who will tolerate no dissent or challenge,” Erik Stanley, an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal firm representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement released Monday. “In this case, they have embarked upon a witch-hunt, and we are asking the court to put a stop to it.”

While some are decrying the government’s act as disturbing and problematic from a First Amendment perspective, city attorney Dave Feldman has a different take, telling KTRK-TV that he believes that the gathering of signatures at local churches makes examining sermons an entirely appropriate response.

“If they choose to do this inside the church, choose to do this from the pulpit, then they open the door to the questions being asked,” he told the outlet.

Feldman also said on a separate occasion, “If someone is speaking from the pulpit and it’s political speech, then it’s not going to be protected.”

The plaintiffs in the case, which include local leaders and pastors, are now attempting to have the subpoenas thrown out.

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New information recently revealed shows that the city of Houston subpoenaed sermons given by local pastors who have been vocal in their opposition of the controversial Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) and who have ties to the Christian activists who have sued the city, reported The Houston Chronicle.

The subpoenas were issued by city attorneys as part of the case's discover phase, and requested specific communication, including, "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 you or in your possession."

Share This Story

After vocally expressing their opposition on the HERO law, pastors and religious leaders such as Dave Welch, Hernan Castano, Magda Hermida, Khanh Huynh and Steven Riggle were issued the subpoenas, and the Alliance Defending Freedom (AFP), a Christian legal organization defending the pastors, filed a motion Monday to stop the subpoena, reported the Chronicle.

The AFP's motion claimed the subpoenas are "overly broad" and "cause undue burden or harassment."

After Houston Mayor Annise Parker signed HERO into law in May, opponents began to collect signatures to put a repeal measure on the ballot, and on July 3, more than 50,000 signatures were delivered to the city. The city announced a month later that HERO opponents were "2,000 valid signatures short of the 17,269-signature threshold," and "most of the pages contained mistakes that invalidated the entire pages of signatures."

Then in August, opponents filed a suit against the city with the help of ADF, and HERO was placed on hold. The recent subpoenas were filed in response to that suit.

The city of Houston also wants all information relating to payments and incentives offered to people hired to circulate anti-HERO petitions.

"The city's subpoena of sermons and other pastoral communications is both needless and unprecedented," ADF 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."

"Political and social commentary is not a crime," Holcomb said. "It is protected by the First Amendment."

Opponents of HERO mainly took issue with how the ordinance legally allows transgender residents to use restrooms "consistent with their gender expression," reported the Chronicle.

Read more: http://www.hngn.com/articles/46010/2014 ... z3GJdd2fSf

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[Borgholio]

Except you have to be a subscriber of the Houston Chronicle

You do? I got right in via Google...I'm not a subscriber.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/po ... 822800.php

[dragon]

Except you have to be a subscriber of the Houston Chronicle

You do? I got right in via Google...I'm not a subscriber.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/po ... 822800.php

Yeah I click the link and I get a page with a one sentence blurb then a message that to continue reading I need to be a digital subscriber and when I try to become a digital subscriber it ask for my subscription number.

Could you post the article?

[Borgholio]

Could you post the article?

Can do.

Houston's embattled equal rights ordinance took another legal turn this week when it surfaced that city attorneys, in an unusual step, subpoenaed sermons given by local pastors who oppose the law and are tied to the conservative Christian activists who have sued the city.

Opponents of the equal rights ordinance are hoping to force a repeal referendum when they get their day in court in January, claiming City Attorney David Feldman wrongly determined they had not gathered enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

City attorneys issued subpoenas last month as part of the case's discovery phase, seeking, among other communications, "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 you or in your possession."

The subpoenas were issued to pastors and religious leaders who have been vocal in opposing the ordinance: Dave Welch, Hernan Castano, Magda Hermida, Khanh Huynh and Steve Riggle. The Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal organization known for its role in defending same-sex marriage bans, filed a motion Monday on behalf of the pastors seeking to quash the subpoenas, and in a press announcement called it a "witch hunt."

The city's lawyers will face a high bar for proving the information in the sermons is essential to their case, said Charles Rhodes, a South Texas College of Law professor. The pastors are not named parties in the suit, and the "Church Autonomy Doctrine" offers fairly broad protections for internal church deliberations, he said.

Calling it an "unusual but not unprecedented" subpoena request, Rhodes said the city would stand a better chance of getting the sermons if it were a criminal case in which the message or directive in the sermons prompted a specific criminal action.

Still, he said, the city likely will get a boost because many of the sermons are broadcast or recorded and are intended to be shared with the public.

"This is unusual to see it come up in a pure political controversy," Rhodes said. "The city is going to have to prove there is something very particular in the sermons that does not come up anywhere else."

To that end, Feldman said the pastors made their sermons relevant to the case by using the pulpit to do political organizing. That included encouraging congregation members to sign petitions and help gather signatures for equal rights ordinance foes, who largely take issue with the rights extended to gay and transgender residents.

Training video

Feldman pointed to a training video that surfaced this summer showing Welch, of the Houston Area Pastor Council, explaining the rules signature gatherers needed to follow during a church presentation. With aPowerPoint presentation behind him, Welch tells the audience the city's stringent repeal referendum process "makes it more challenging for us" to qualify for the ballot.

Ordinance supporters said the video proved the signature gatherers were aware of the rules but flouted them anyway.

"If someone is speaking from the pulpit and it's political speech, then it's not going to be protected," Feldman said.

Plaintiff Jared Woodfill disagreed, saying the subpoenas impinge on protected religious freedoms.

"This is the city trampling on the First Amendment rights of pastors in their churches," said Woodfill, a former chairman of the Harris County Republican Party.

Woodfill and other critics pledged to take the issue to the voters after the City Council approved the ordinance in May, banning discrimination among businesses that serve the public, private employers, in housing and in city employment and city contracting. Religious institutions are exempt.

City Secretary Anna Russell initially counted enough signatures to qualify the opponents' petition, with about 600 more than the required 17,269 signatures. Feldman then looked through all of the petition pages to see if those who gathered signatures met city charter requirements - namely, whether signature gatherers were Houston residents and whether they signed the petition pages.

That process disqualified more than half the 5,199 pages. In their suit, opponents claimed Russell's original count should be the most important one and alleged Feldman had inserted himself into the process illegally.

Filed appeals

In August, opponents agreed to drop their request for an emergency temporary injunction, aimed at forcing a referendum this November. The group has filed several appeals in an effort to expedite the case, including a pending appeal at the Texas Supreme Court.

The subpoenas, however, are tied to the January district court date and request more than just sermons. The requests touch on a wide range of communications among the pastors, with their congregations and with city officials about the ordinance, including "any discussion about whether or how HERO does or does not impact restroom access."

Opponents frequently have cited the perceived threat of male sexual predators dressed in drag entering women's restrooms, dubbing the measure the "Sexual Predator Protection Act."

The ordinance protects transgender residents' ability to use the restroom consistent with their gender expression, regardless of their biological sex, but puts the onus on the individual to prove he or she was a victim of bias.

The city also is seeking any information about payments and incentives offered to people contracted to circulate the petitions, and the tax information associated with those payments.

The city does not intend to back down from its request and is working on a response to the Alliance Defending Freedom's motion, Feldman said.

[Edi]

Looks like they have the articles free to read for the first few hours and they go behind the paywall after that. I needed nothing special to see it when it came out.

[Elheru Aran]

A couple of people shat up my Facebook with this (I really need to just give up FB for a while...). In general though, the legal conclusion is that while the subpoena is essentially justified, it may be over-broad since it's basically asking the pastors to turn over *everything* they've spoken and written about homosexuality.

And in a busy Texas city, well, that's going to be a fuckload of stuff, most of it not even relevant...

[Borgholio]

Yeah it does seem somewhat broad but when you're talking about half of all signatures are obtained from people who don't even live in Houston, that needs to be looked at.

[Elheru Aran]

Certainly that is a major concern. Regrettably almost everybody re-posting this piece of "news" (it happened almost a month ago) tends to overlook that and be all OMG gubmint oppression. Seriously, google "city of houston sermons" and 90% of the pages you get are all The Blaze, Free Republic, Federalist Papers, Wingnut Daily, Infowars, etc...

[Borgholio]

90% of the pages you get are all The Blaze, Free Republic, Federalist Papers, Wingnut Daily, Infowars, etc...

Fox News.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Can we mandate people check Snopes before they post articles from right-wing propaganda sites? http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/houston.asp

Fox lied. Again.

[Borgholio]

Fox lied. Again.

Shocking.

[TheHammer]

What was the lie exactly?

[Channel72]

What was the lie exactly?

Yeah... it's not really a lie, per se.

Look, I really don't fucking feel like defending Fox News, but the OP posted an opinion piece. The opinion piece, written by some idiot at Fox named Todd Starnes (fuck you, Todd) basically simplifies this whole affair down to "government oppresses Christians", glossing over all the mitigating variables involved. Reading his opinion piece, you'd think the second coming of Nero was upon us. Oh shit... like, any second the government is going to arrest all pastors and throw them in the Coliseum to be fed to lions, while a huge audience of gays/transgenders/atheists/Muslims watches and cheers!

Still, it's an opinion piece, not exactly news. It's not a lie, but an oversimplification based on the author's biased thinking and one-dimensional world-view.

[Borgholio]

I would consider deliberately omitting critical information to be a lie. This story takes a full 90 degree turn once you get to the reasoning behind the subpoenas. When they ignore that fact and say, "The government is trying to silence people who speak out about homosexuality." is a blatant lie. It is simply not true at all.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Maybe "news" companies should practice at least basic vetting with opinion pieces? Though I have to admit that the line between "opinion" and "story" is becoming increasingly non-existent.

A lie of omission is still a fucking lie, Channel72.

[Channel72]

My point is that a lot of people think in such a biased, one-dimensional manner that the difference between lies and stupidity/ignorance is a grey area. I'm sure the omitted details about the invalid signatures probably don't even register as significant to the conservative guy who wrote this - all he sees is "government/gay-militants find any excuse to oppress Christians". It's just black & white, us versus them thinking. And of course, his editor peers don't care because it's just an opinion piece, and it follows the standard Fox narrative of "Christians being persecuted by evil militant gays".

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, but the practical effect is to create an opinion piece that systematically leads to a false conclusion which will be, willy-nilly, distributed to a large sector of the public to reinforce their existing biases.

Even if the author personally is not consciously lying, the system that he represents and operates on behalf of is lying, methodically and in an organized fashion. Because it's not like they'd ever publish a story next week saying "evil homobortionist mayor actually had no desire to read sermons or persecute ministers opposed to her and this was entirely about whether or not the ministers instructed certain survey teams to do certain things or not."

[TheHammer]

Yes, but the practical effect is to create an opinion piece that systematically leads to a false conclusion which will be, willy-nilly, distributed to a large sector of the public to reinforce their existing biases.

Even if the author personally is not consciously lying, the system that he represents and operates on behalf of is lying, methodically and in an organized fashion. Because it's not like they'd ever publish a story next week saying "evil homobortionist mayor actually had no desire to read sermons or persecute ministers opposed to her and this was entirely about whether or not the ministers instructed certain survey teams to do certain things or not."

Well the bottom line is a subpoena was issued that was overly broad and certainly could stoke up fears of "big brother government" trying to silence an opposing voice. Obviously, the follow up from the Mayor's office indicate they intended to narrow it greatly. I'm curious as to why they are fighting so hard to keep a referendum off the ballot. Either it would validate the law, or it would show that the will of the people was not served in its passage.

[Borgholio]

Well the referendum would potentially allow gays and lesbians to be legally discriminated against. I can't imagine the lesbian mayor would want this to happen. Plus, the petition IS illegal...so that can't be ignored.

[TheHammer]

Well the referendum would potentially allow gays and lesbians to be legally discriminated against. I can't imagine the lesbian mayor would want this to happen. Plus, the petition IS illegal...so that can't be ignored.

The petition being legal or not is subject to a current court challenge. Regardless of that, since the elected officials were put in place to effect the will of the people, a referendum would either show that this has been done, or that it hasn't. And if it hasn't, then it should go back to the city council to redraft a law that would have the support of the people.

[Grumman]

While I'm only familiar with one aspect of the law that prompted the petition, it is a shit law if that's anything to go by. I've said before that no law should have a religious exemption - either it's not important that people follow the law, in which case it shouldn't be a law, or it is important that people follow the law, in which case people shouldn't be able to bypass the law just by wrapping their desire to be exempt in the phrase "God says".

The same goes here. Making it legal across the board for men to use women's restrooms and vice versa would at least be honest about what you are doing, because either it's not important to stop cisgendered men using women's restrooms, or it's important enough that a cisgendered man merely saying the three words "I'm a woman" should not be the difference between it being legal and illegal.