Why Houston Subpoenaed Pastors’ Sermons

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaking at a rally in defense of the Houston pastors.

The hyperventilating among Christofascists over the decision of the City of Houston to subpoena the sermons of a small number of pastors seemingly knows no limits and one is hearing claims that it represents a war on Christians and rants about homo-fascists.  The real fascists, of course, are the Christofascists.  And then there's the real issue: whether or not these pastors were violating the laws that restrict the political activity of tax-exempt churches.  As noted countless times on this blog, the Christofascists believe they are above complying with the laws that govern the rest of us.  Think Progress looks at what is really behind the city of Houston's subpoenas.  Here are excerpts:

There has been a new clash this week in the fight over the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), a law that would protect LGBT individuals and other targeted groups from discrimination. The latest hubbub involves the city subpoenaing five pastors for their sermons, which has prompted conservatives to claim that religious liberty is under attack and that the subpoenas are a form of intimidation.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, was on Fox News last night claiming that Houston Mayor Annise Parker (D) is “taking a bulldozer to that wall of separation [of church and state]” and trying to “dictate what pastors preach.”

The Houston City Council approved HERO in May with a vote of 11-6. In addition to its inclusion of LGBT protections, it was actually the city’s first nondiscrimination bill protecting any classification, including race, sex, and religion. Houston was one of the only large cities in the country with no nondiscrimination policy on the books.

After the law passed, a coalition formed known as “No Unequal Rights,” spearheaded by local church groups like the Houston Area Pastor Council and Baptist Ministers Association of Houston. The anti-LGBT coalition began collecting signatures to challenge HERO with a referendum.

Enough of the pages were disqualified to bring the number of signatures below what was required, leading Feldman and Parker to announce that the petition effort had failed.  Opponents of the law responded by immediately filing a lawsuit against the city, demanding the referendum be placed on the ballot.

[T]he case largely hinges on the validity of the signatures and the process by which they were collected. A video posted by Equality Texas shortly after the suit was filed shows Pastor David Welch, director of the Houston Area Pastor Council, training signature collectors about the very city rules that Feldman used to disqualify entire pages of signatures. The subpoenas seek to collect additional information about how pastors like Welch communicated with their congregations about the petition process.

The subpoenas targeted five pastors in Houston: David Welch, Steve Riggle, Khan Huynh, Magda Hermida, and Hernan Castano. The requests seek documents related to the funding of the petition effort, t he training of petition circulators, and the messaging used to convince individuals to sign. What has particularly drawn conservative ire was the request for “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 fate of the subpoenas will ultimately be determined by the court. In the meantime, conservatives seem intent on using the controversy to spread myths about the petition, the implications of the subpoenas, and more of the same anti-LGBT rhetoric they used to unsuccessfully oppose HERO in the first place.

If these pastors and their churches were funding this petition effort, they have likely violated the provisions of Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and should lose their tax exempt status.

Campaign To Repeal Houston LGBT Rights Ordinance Fails Petition Count

Despite the great show and fanfare that they put on as they delivered supposedly 50,000 signatures on petitions seeking to put the repeal of Houston, Texas' LGBT rights ordinance on the ballot, the animus inspired hate merchants failed to produce enough valid signatures to put the measure up to a popular vote.  Despite the self-proclaimed "godliness" of the opponents to the LGBT rights ordinance, more than half of the signatures turned in were not valid (actually, roughly 69% were invalid).  That's right, they flawed and/or fraudulent.  As I have stated many times before, no one is more dishonest that the "godly Christian" crowd.  Here are highlights from the Houston Chronicle about the failed effort of the Christofascists and their allies:

Opponents of Houston's new non-discrimination ordinance did not get enough valid signatures to force a November repeal referendum, Mayor Annise Parker and City Attorney David Feldman announced Monday.

"With respect to the referendum petition filed to repeal the 'HERO' ordinance, there are simply too many documents with irregularities and problems to overlook," Feldman said. "The petition is simply invalid. There is no other conclusion."

The council approved the ordinance on an 11-6 vote in May. Opponents who took issue with the protections extended to gay and transgender people under the ordinance promised to send the issue to the voters. On July 3, they claimed to have delivered more than 50,000 signatures to the city secretary's office.

Opponents needed a minimum of 17,269 valid signatures - 10 percent of the ballots cast in the last mayoral election - to put a referendum on the November ballot. Feldman said some of the petition gatherers did not satisfy the requirements set out for such petitions in the city charter, such as by not being registered Houston voters or by not signing the petition themselves. If such requirements were not met, he said, all the signatures the circulator gathered were invalid.

Less than half of the more than 5,000 pages opponents submitted were valid, Feldman said, leaving the final valid tally at 15,249 signatures.

 Dave Welch of the Houston Area Pastor Council helped lead the repeal petition effort. He pledged to fight the Parker's decision in court.

"It is what it is," she [Mayor Parker] said. "As I've said throughout this process, I fully expected there would be legal pressure from one side or the other, however the issue came out. I fully expected it to end up on a ballot, and we would win. If it does not wind up on a ballot, it saves the city a significant amount of money and effort mounting a legal campaign, in addition to the community's efforts on both sides to wage that campaign."

Note how Welsh and his cohorts simply cannot admit (i) that they turned in bogus petitions and (ii) the days of Christofascists forcing their beliefs on all are over, even in red states like Texas.  They may win a few rear guard actions, but they have lost the war.  They are becoming more akin to failed segregationists of yesteryear with every passing day.  They cannot stand that they are quickly becoming irrelevant.

Houston's "Godly" Freak Out and Threaten to Kill the Mayor

I've noted before the sick need of the self-anointed "godly Christians" to be superior to others - to demand and need special rights in order to feel good about their miserable selves.  With the city of Houston's recent passage of non-discrimination protections that include LGBT people, some of the godly folk have simply gone berserk.  Having others be equal to them under the law and not being able to discriminate and mistreat others is, in their warped minds, discrimination against them.  And it's not just gays they dislike, although we always seem to engender at special level of animus.  No, its anyone who is "other" due to race, faith, or sexual orientation.  These godly folk are truly nothing less than mentally disturbed.  A piece in Transadvocate looks at the hate and venom being spewed by these :godly Christians" simply because others have been guaranteed equality.  Here are some excerpts:

On Wednesday, May 28, 2014, the Houston City Council approved a sweeping non-discrimination ordinance barring discrimination against 15 protected classes, including an explicit protection against discrimination due to one’s religion. The city’s right-wing community immediately claimed to be oppressed, threatened to recall everyone who voted for the ordinance and pledged to put their own religious protections up for a popular vote in the November election. More worrisome, the Mayor of Houston is now protected around the clock due to death threats.

If you’re having trouble understanding what has the foes of equality so upset it’s simple: equality isn’t supremacy and they want supremacy. For instance, a well-known Houston area Christian pastor asserted that people should have the right to discriminate against Jewish people.  

Speaking before City Council, anti-equality activist Karina Alvarez said, “I feel [that] I have been discriminated against today!” The nature of the oppression she said she faced was that queer people weren’t forced to give up their seat to her, a heterosexual women. Having shown up late to the City Council proceedings, Alvarez had to stand because all of the seats were taken. Since some of the seats were occupied by LGBT supporters of the ordinance, Alvarez complained, “The [ordinance supporters] have seats and I had to stay standing and I see this as a very discriminatory situation!”

Imagine, a world in which a Jew was equal to a Christian and a queer person didn’t have to surrender their seat to a hetero person. For the forces of anti-equality, equality is unacceptable because it means surrendering their status as a members of a superior class.

Those who benifit from oppressive systems are generally never truly honest about what bothers them about equality. Instead, bigots have devised a set of attacks that they use to obfuscate the reality of their true purpose. In practically every anti-equality moment, the plays are the same:

The one-two punch: appeal to authority while demonizing the oppressed

   The Klan Fallacy: cherry pick data to make sweeping generalizations about the oppressed  (often  used as “proof” that demonizing is warranted)

           Violence: the threat of violence is made known and/or carried out

I’ll refer to the the foes of equality - the racists, homo/transphobes, anti-Semites, etc – simply as bigots. They – in one way or another – want to privilege their group(s) at the expense of another precisely because, to them, equality is a resented loss of superiority within society. Equality feels oppressive to the privileged because instead of being superior to those they once oppressed, the’re now no better than the group they hate and that’s unacceptable to them.

In a perverse twist of irony, the group that stood against the most recent Houston equality ordinance recruited may black Christian pastors to be voice of their bigotry. While waving their bibles in the air, these bigots asserted this fight for equality was in no way reminiscent traditional civil rights efforts. However, PoC leaders like past City Council Member, Jolanda Jones, the TransAdvocate Editor, Monica Roberts, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, the NAACP, the Urban League and LULAC didn’t see it that way.

This is a human rights issue. It is a civil rights issue and if people haven’t noticed, I happen to be black since people seem to think there is a distinction between being black and being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. It is the same. You are who you are; you are born like that. I am hurt [begins to weep] that I hear people using religion to figure out ways to discriminate… I hope that those who vote do it for the right reasons because god forbid you have a GLBT person in your family; I’ve had 2 friend’s kids commit suicide over discrimination against that community. So, I urge you to vote for it because it’s a human rights issue!   – City Council Member, Jolanda Jones

Republican State Representative Dwayne Bohac claimed that the Houston equality ordinance is a “threat to religious liberty” because it would force people to treat LGBT people equally. Furthermore, he claimed that equal rights would mean that children may be molested.

 The take away from all of this?  That the "godly folk" are neither nice or decent people.  The sooner that society as a whole recognizes this reality, the better off the nation will be.

"Godly Bigots" Threaten Recall Effort in Houston Over Non-Discrimination Ordinance

Houston skyline

The same mindset I mentioned in the last post that continues to hold back truly addressing the worldwide HIV/AIDS crisis is alive and well in Houston, Texas, and true to form we see angry white conservatives and their trained circus dogs, black pastors, railing against a proposed city ordinance that would give LGBT individuals non-discrimination protections.  The evil of religion just never seems to cease.  Think Progress looks at the spittle flecked opponents on non-discrimination and the simpering cretins within the black pastor crowd who are once again allowing themselves to be manipulated by those who, if allowed, would rescind non-discrimination protections based on race.  Here are excerpts:

Houston’s city council is scheduled to vote Wednesday on an ordinance to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. But anti-gay activist and Houston Community College Board of Trustees member Dave Wilson (R) is threatening to recall openly lesbian Mayor Annise Parker (D) and any city council members who support the non-discrimination policy.

According to KHOU 11 News, Wilson said he and other opponents of LGBT equality might collect signatures to recall anyone who backs the proposal under the city charter’s recall provision to allow removal of officials in cases of “incompetence, misconduct, malfeasance or unfitness for office.” Wilson told the station, “we consider them to be incompetent,” as he believes passage of the law would violate state law.

Though the threat could scare off some support — just 2,500 signatures would be required to mandate a recall election for a city council member — recall expert Joshua Spivak noted on his Recall Elections Blog Saturday that the claim that this vote shows incompetence would “probably will be extremely difficult to hold up in court.” Indeed Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and San Antonio all have already passed LGBT non-discrimination ordinances without incident.

This is the latest in a long series of attacks of Parker launched by Wilson. In 2011, he got just 11.73 percent of the vote against Parker for Mayor of Houston. In that campaign, he mailed a flier to 35,000 voters featuring a picture of Parker standing by her same-sex partner and the caption “IS THIS THE IMAGE HOUSTON WANTS TO PORTRAY?” and made robo-calls to warn voters of Parker’s “alternative lifestyle.”

[T]wo years later Wilson narrowly won election to the Houston Community College Board of Trustees after misleading voters into believing that he is African American. In an overwhelmingly African American-dominated district, Wilson filled mailers with photos of African American people he admittedly pull off of websites, along with captions such as “Please vote for our friend and neighbor Dave Wilson.”

KHOU TV has this as well:

Parker’s proposal has stirred up an unlikely coalition of conservative whites who never cared much for the mayor anyway and African-American ministers offended by the notion that sexual orientation is a civil right. Church leaders have rallied outside City Hall in opposition to the ordinance, focusing largely on the idea that it would allow transgendered people to decide whether to use men’s or women’s restrooms.