Houston’s Mayor Throws Out Citizens’ Petition, Goes after Local Pastors | National Review Online
10-15-14 By Ian Tuttle
The city subpoenas private communications in a brazen fishing expedition.
Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Unless you’re in Houston, Texas, in which case you had best render everything to Mayor Annise Parker — or else.
Earlier this year Parker, a Democrat, spearheaded the passage of an “Equal Rights Ordinance” (ERO) that added “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the city’s non-discrimination provision, which includes, among other things, “public accommodations” — for example, restrooms. Citizens, among them church leaders, balked. They launched a referendum petition that, with the requisite 17,269 signatures, would require the city council to repeal the ERO, or to put the measure up for a vote. They obtained 55,000 signatures. The city secretary, who has sole responsibility for certifying such petitions, signed off.
Enter Houston city attorney David Feldman, who, with no legal authority, disqualified 38,000 signatures. Names that were printed, rather than written in cursive, were discarded; names that were written in cursive were considered illegible — just enough names to get the petition below the 17,000-signature requirement, at which point the city council and Mayor Parker rejected it. And several citizens sued.
But the city’s shenanigans had only just begun. Unsatisfied with violating the rights of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the City of Houston has subpoenaed privileged communications of five pastors (none of them party to the lawsuit) who helped to organize the petition drive. Among other information, the city is requesting communications between the pastors and their attorneys pertaining to the ERO lawsuit, communications between the pastors and their congregants, and even the pastors’ sermons.
To understand the full extent of the city’s overreach, it is worth quoting the actual subpoena: The request for sermons, for example, seeks “all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to H[ouston] ERO, the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession.” “Or in your possession” — suddenly a Billy Graham sermon is the legal equivalent of child pornography.
The inclusion of material that refers to Annise Parker makes clear just what is afoot: “political retribution,” says Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the five pastors. ADF has filed a motion to quash the subpoenas, and is now awaiting the city’s response.
What is the city hoping to accomplish with the subpoenas? …
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