15 October 2014 A.D. Houstunned: Pastors Vow to Fight Mayor's Sermon Grab
15 October 2014 A.D. Houstunned: Pastors Vow to Fight Mayor's Sermon Grab
Perkins, Tony. “Houstunned: Pastors Vow to Fight Mayor's Sermon Grab.” Family Research Council. 15 Oct 2014. http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/houstunned-pastors-vow-to-fight-mayors-sermon-grab. Accessed 15 Oct 2014.
Houstunned: Pastors Vow to Fight Mayor's Sermon Grab
After four years of forcing her extreme agenda on the city, Mayor Annise Parker may have finally picked a fight she's bound to regret. Five months after bullying her way into a Houston-wide "bathroom bill," Parker is furious that the city's voters won't roll over and accept it. Instead, America's fourth-largest city fought back, gathering three times the number of signatures needed to put the issue on the ballot. Furious with local pastors for leading the push-back, Parker decided to get her revenge by ordering a Soviet-style crackdown on area churches.
In a story that's spreading like wildfire, the Mayor had
the nerve to subpoena pastors for their sermons, text messages, photographs,
electronic files, calendars, and emails -- "all communications with members of your congregation" on topics like homosexuality and
gender identity. If she thought her religious "inquisition" would
scare pastors, she's got another thing coming. Local Christians are more
outraged than ever, igniting a firestorm that could awaken a sleeping giant in
churches from coast to coast. "We're not intimidated at all," said Rev. Dave Welch. "We're not going to yield our First Amendment rights," he
warned -- even if it ends in fines, confinement, or both.
The Mayor reportedly attempted to douse the flames a bit
by saying the subpoena was the work of pro-bono lawyers and that she was not
aware of it until yesterday. Then, she doubled down with a tweet: "If the 5 pastors
used pulpits for politics, their sermons are fair game."
In a conversation I had this afternoon with a handful of
key pastors, it's obvious that this is a fight they're ready for. Pastor Steve
Riggle, a friend of FRC's, sees right through the Mayor's agenda. "This is
an attempt to chill pastors from speaking to the cultural issues of the day,"
he told Fox News's Todd Starnes. And if she doesn't pull her attack dogs off
the city's churches, the joke will be on her. It just might end up being the
most ingenious way of getting liberals into the pews yet! "Political and
social commentary is not a crime. It is protected by the First Amendment,"
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) pointed out.
This is the "wall of separation" Jefferson
talked about: protecting churches from the government (not the other way around). The Left is fond of
misrepresenting the third President's famous letter, but Annise Parker's
intrusion is exactly what the Founders were concerned about. But what did we
expect in a country where four little letters -- LGBT -- are trumping the
letter of the law? "Even in Houston," Erick Erickson
writes, "you will be made to care."
Unfortunately, Houston is learning a hard lesson about
the importance of elections. As frustrating as it is, this is what happens in a
city where only 16 percent turn out to vote in the mayor's race. For now,
though, local churches have a message for the government: go ahead and monitor
our sermons. You obviously need the messages more than most.
You can stand with Houston's pastors by signing FRC's petition to Mayor Annise Parker, asking her to support free speech for all people. For more on the controversy, tune in
to my interview on Fox News's "Kelly File" tonight at 9:20 p.m. (ET).
A Tex Book Case of Activism
For Texans, it's another obstacle to their
constitutionally-protected right to self-governance -- the principle it
exercised when it raised health standards on local abortion clinics. While the
Left talks about protecting women, Texas actually did it -- enacting a sweeping
measure that puts women's safety ahead of the clinics' bottom lines. Had the
law gone into effect, all but seven abortion clinics were expected to close for
failing to abide by these common sense standards. Now, those plans are on hold,
as the justices stick their nose in the state's consensus to bring the local
abortion industry in line with other medical centers in terms of licenses and
facilities upgrades.
As states like Texas try to save lives, the federal
government is still doing all it can to jeopardize them by subsidizing abortion
under ObamaCare. Yesterday, FRC Action's Josh Duggar rallied with Lila Rose at D.C.'s Planned Parenthood headquarters, protesting its
growing role in American culture -- financed by unwilling taxpayers. Last
month's GAO reports made a liar out of the Obama administration, which insisted that its
signature health care law wouldn't bankroll abortion-on-demand.
Not only is it bankrolling the procedure, it's almost
impossible to find a plan that doesn't. A whopping 1,036 insurance policies force taxpayers into the abortion industry -- 1,036
more than the President promised ObamaCare would back in 2010. "With seven
in 10 Americans saying they don't want taxpayer funds to go to pay for
abortions, people should cast their votes 'to take back the Senate for
life,'" pro-lifers said.
On the Magistrate and Narrow...
"My understanding," said Chief District
Court Judge Christopher Bean, "is that a couple
came and asked to be married and he refused to marry them based upon his, I
guess, religious or moral principles." Like the overwhelming majority of
Tar Heels, Littleton probably voted to define marriage as the union of a man
and woman in 2012. Now, two years later, he doesn't believe that a handful of
unelected judges should be able to override his vote -- and the vote of
1,317,177 others. "I suppose that it can be construed that he broke the
law, because that is a duty that the magistrate has, to perform
marriages," Bean went on. Yesterday, the county met to determine if Littleton
could face criminal charges for exercising the freedom the First Amendment
guarantees.
While he and other clerks await their fate, a federal judge has
given Speaker of the North Carolina House, Thom Tillis, the
right to defend his state's marriage amendment in court. An appeal could kick
the issue back to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which struck down
Virginia's law.
Meanwhile, one of the Tar Heels' most recognizable church
faces, Rev. Franklin Graham, says he barely recognizes his country. "It's sad when a judge is able to
overrule the will of the people. This is a democracy and the people spoke.
We're seeing that activist judges across the country are overturning the will
of the people. We saw that in California. We're now seeing it here in North
Carolina now. I don't know what will take place." But capitulation won't
be it.
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