Houston orders pastors to hand over sermons and private communications...

[Balog]

If they in any way relate to homosexuality, "gender identity", or the city's angry lesbian mayor. Good old Texas, bastion of conservatism and freedom.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/10/14/city-houston-demands-pastors-turn-over-sermons/

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.

[roo_ster]

However, the city threw out the petition in August over alleged irregularities.

Of course they did. 

Getting to be time to dust off the cartridge box and start writing down names for future reference.

[Scout26]

How many 1A violations?  Oh, let me count the ways.


Tossing the pettition?  Was there a hearing?   Did they state how many signatures were "phony"?  How many did they check?

Subpeonas for sermons.   Yeah, I'd like to see the judge that let fly.   Saying "I don't like the mixed bathroom ordinance, I don't like Homosexuals"  Hmmmm, free speech, so sorry Madam Mayor if you don't like it.  Welcome to the big leagues. There will be critics.  However your Soviet style attempts to stifle dissent should have you being put up against the wall.  You know, pour encourager les autres. 

[dogmush]

LOL.

The mega church pastors should send an email that says "Nuts", and pray that Houston is stupid enough to jail them. I can not think of a single way to get more support, parishioners,  or money* then being the Christian jailed by a lesbian over sermons.

*I leave it to the reader to guess which of those three things is more important to a mega church pastor.

[RocketMan]

The mayor will eventually run into a court that actually pays attention to the Constitution.  That will be entertaining.  Break out the popcorn and beer.

[Perd Hapley]

I will be heartily disappointed if any of these pastors cooperate.

However:

This is a great opportunity for those pastors to communicate their thoughts to the clowns in charge. "You want sermons? I've got some lively ones prepped. One has lepers..."

[p12]

These libtards seem to overplaying their hand of late. This could get interesting.

[Ron]

These libtards seem to overplaying their hand of late. This could get interesting.

They sense weakness. They are probing the perimeter and instigating skirmishes.

Overplaying their hand? No.

They are grinding out the ground game and getting first downs. They are moving the sticks while their opponent plays prevent defense.



 

[Perd Hapley]

They sense weakness. They are probing the perimeter and instigating skirmishes.

Overplaying their hand? No.

They are grinding out the ground game and getting first downs. They are moving the sticks while their opponent plays prevent defense.

They're in the third quarter, and sussing out exactly how they're going to clinch the game.

[roo_ster]

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/196678/

THEY WOULDN’T DO THIS IF THEY FEARED BEHEADINGS: Houston Subpoenas Pastors’ Sermons To Look For Anti-Gay Talk.

[brimic]

I will be heartily disappointed if any of these pastors cooperate.

However:

This is a great opportunity for those pastors to communicate their thoughts to the clowns in charge. "You want sermons? I've got some lively ones prepped. One has lepers..."

Its almost certain there will be a coalition of leftist pastors who will support the mayor,  there's always a lefty 'interfaith' group in every city made up of pastors of insignificant or pseudo-christian churches (some if which are outright scams in of themselves) who grab the headlines on a regular basis for gay marriage or raising taxes or ending gun violence. ...
I know the pastor of a LCMS megachurch just outside of Houston, I haven't seen him in a few years, but I can vouch for him as being 100% solid.

[sanglant]

Que the 80+yo pastor with hardcopies of all his sermons, etc. .

[Balog]

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/196678/

They subpoenaed the mosques too right?

[zxcvbob]

They subpoenaed the mosques too, right?

That's just what i was coming here to say.

[MechAg94]

The Church we went to when I was a kid has been recorded and distributing sermons for 30 years or more.  Used to send out cassettes.  Been doing mp3 files for at least 15 years maybe longer.  I was thinking they could get a big flash drive and put 20 years of sermons on it and turn it over.  Let the city figure out which sermon has what they want. 

Otherwise, send a letter saying they are welcome to attend church and take notes.

[KD5NRH]

Que the 80+yo pastor with hardcopies of all his sermons, etc.

Hardcopies can be scanned, OCRd and then searched the easy way.  I was thinking of piping all the good web sermon archives through a text-to-speech program, adding the audio tracks of every YouTube video of a sermon, and giving it all to them in very low quality mp3s.

[K Frame]

So far at least half a dozen pastors have told the Mayor to go pound sand and that they are more than happy to go to jail.

[roo_ster]

They subpoenaed the mosques too right?

Now THAT's a knee-slapper!

[HankB]

Its almost certain there will be a coalition of leftist pastors who will support the mayor . . .

Paging Al Sharpton . . . paging Jeremiah Wright . . . paging Jesse Jackson . . .

[KD5NRH]

So far at least half a dozen pastors have told the Mayor to go pound sand and that they are more than happy to go to jail.

Matthew 5:10-12
Luke 6:22-23

Bring it on.

[Balog]

“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.” - Francis Cardinal George, former Archbishop of Chicago, 2010


Seems apropos.

[lee n. field]

The Church we went to when I was a kid has been recorded and distributing sermons for 30 years or more.  Used to send out cassettes.  Been doing mp3 files for at least 15 years maybe longer.  I was thinking they could get a big flash drive and put 20 years of sermons on it and turn it over.  Let the city figure out which sermon has what they want. 

Otherwise, send a letter saying they are welcome to attend church and take notes.

Sermonaudio.com.

Heck, even the little place we go to now throws sermons onto a Youtube channel, mostly for the benefit of some folks that can't make it often.

[KD5NRH]

Marnoot's being quiet.  Must be busy concatenating the the entire archive of General Conference talks into a single FLAC to email to mayor@houstontx.gov

It's the "any communications with members" relating to the law that, to me, comes way too close to an outright refusal to recognize the confidentiality of confessions; I've yet to meet any clergyman of any faith that wasn't also willing to discuss social and legal effects of a confessed act, and even redacting the confession itself, knowing that the law was discussed as part of it pretty well tells what it was about.

I'd be surprised if the Catholic Church isn't quietly preparing for this one in a big way.  I'd be more surprised if it didn't generate one of the largest interfaith cooperative efforts in history if the city keeps pushing to the point that somebody has to step up and take them all the way to the big leagues.

[Perd Hapley]

I'd like to see every preacher in Houston civilly disobey. Leftists love that, right?

I would also like to see every preacher without Houston flood the city's office, and crash their email with sermons, tracts, essays, etc, etc. I will speak to my pastor about this at our Wed. evening meeting.

[KD5NRH]

OK, who's in charge of sending every item of JW literature to them?

And does Jack T. Chick have an "order all and send as gift" option?

ETA: In the interest of diversity, you must send every available language.