Again, the Left spits on the First Amendment
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. […]
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. […]
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.”
Goodness, who knew Annise Parker is Putin’s long-lost, illegitimate daughter?
I would have sent in a letter with exactly two quotes, the First Amendment and Matthew 7:1.
Then shredded any mail from the City Offices for the indefinite future.
the proggtards are unafraid these days. time to punch them in the nose.
I assume Texas is similar to most jurisdictions. Subpoenas are issued in blank to lawyers who use them when convening depositions to compel witnesses to appear and/or produce documents, in addition to compelling attendance at trials. They are subject to being quashed by a court, and I’m sure these will be, as well. They come perilously close to abuse of process and open up both the City and lawyer involved to sanctions and discipline, given that they were served on non-parties to the litigation.
given that they were served on non-parties to the litigation. – See more at: https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=55303#comments
Not to mention that they are asking for information protected by both the US Constitution (Amendment I) and the Texas State Constitution (Article I, section 6), to wit (relevant portions bolded):
Damned HTML
“…..the first openly lesbian mayor…” says it all. Just another religion hater.
– Again an opportunity will be lost. The churches should sue the crap out of the mayor and the city for interference in commerce. The church is their “business” and the city is trying to stop them from conducting business with no legal basis.
i’m sure the black folks and their churches are hunky dory with the proggtard
same with the speedy gonzalez crowd
@Drum
The 1st Amendment aspects alone are enough to get the subpoenas quashed, as I indicated.
I focused on the process of using them to obtain documents which are a) clearly protected; b) of minimal if any relevance to the point of being clear harassment and c) of non-parties to litigation. The combination of those factors is what leads to abuse of process. It rarely ends well for the lawyer serving the subpoenas in my experience.
Sadly, Shermlaw, we can no longer have a reasonable expectation that judges will follow The Rule Of Law.
>the city’s first openly communist
lesbianmayor. <…meanwhile, back in the land if Nod…
Shermlaw
I don’t believe even the asshats who filed these subpoenas believe they would actually be successful.
It’s all about Process as Punishment — to slap down those that dare to defy the Masters who KnowWhatsBestForYou.
And there is a particularly disturbing thing that they believe they are free to do so because, you know, who has any sympathy for Xtianist H8ers?
Quarantine Houston
FASCISM! ON! THE! MARCH! From Fox News, Todd Starnes reporting, we learn [tip of the fedora to Darleen Click]: The city of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding a group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or An…
Just look up SLAPP
Darleen,
“Process as Punishment” only works if the recipient is, in fact, punished. As I said, in my experience, such a subpoena would be quashed and the party issuing same would be liable for attorney’s fees and other sanctions. Yes, responding is a pain, but at least where I live, the pain is soothed by the payment of money.
As for the City’s motivation, there’s no doubt that it believes it can do what it’s doing. For the Progs, the 1st Amendment is only about waving your genitalia in public. They need to understand what happens when the rule of law disappear.
A hearty fu q is in order. I’d be tempted to say ignore it and let them try to enforce it. On the other hand, sanctions and public humiliation work well.
Shermlaw, the point of “process as punishment” is that one is punished merely by having to respond to the process.
If I have to hire a lawyer to get phony subpoenas quashed, I HAVE BEEN PUNISHED. I would not otherwise have had to pay a lawyer to do a damn thing for me. PUNISHED.
I am not compensated by seeing my tormenter sanctioned, unless I’m the one doing it, preferably with hot branding irons. I have been forced to divert my attention from MINDING MY OWN FUCKING BUSINESS, which is intolerable and demands more than the payment of money.
Hot branding irons serve to mark the lesson indelibly.
A good beating would do wonders as well, at least for my disposition. I’m not sure how it would affect the beaten.
use only squid™ pitch forks and tar
If I have to hire a lawyer to get phony subpoenas quashed, I HAVE BEEN PUNISHED.
Especially when you consider that the lawyers working for the Mayor and City Council are paid by taxpayer dollars, which means that they can draw these boilerplate subpoenas up all day long without a single penny having to come out of the pockets of said Mayor and Council.
Now, if the Mayor and Council Members were sued for civil rights violations having nothing to do with official business (and I would LOVE to hear them make the argument that violating the First Amendment and the Texas State Constitution falls within their official purview), and forced to come up with private attorneys (since the city attorneys would be co-defendants, and subject to conflicts of interest), maybe they might learn. I doubt it, but anything is possible.
kill commie scum use dull blades like #isisisislam
Given the all caps responses, it would appear that I’m being misunderstood. I certainly agree that responding to bogus complaints is a pain in the ass. The sanctions to which I refer can run the gamut from monetary awards and attorneys fees to criminal prosecutions and suspensions of one’s law license. And because the pastors are non-parties, Civil Rights suits may lie, as well. My point is that the facts in this situation are not the same as, say, an administrative agency, i.e. the EPA, running amok on land use. In the latter, sanctions are substantially more difficult to obtain if they are available at all. In the Houston situation, there is a judge who controls the litigation and has broad discretion on enforcing procedural rules and punishing offenders. It’s a different beast. I know; I’ve been in the midst of these things a few times.
As for the problem that monetary sanctions are ultimately paid by the taxpayers, there’s no way around that. One hopes that voters in Houston will remember this come election day. I would note, the coalition against this ordinance is populated extensively with black evangelical pastors. This sort of behavior on the mayor’s part is not going to help her with her black constituents.
(BTW, in my jurisdiction, individual public servants can be personally liable for such misbehavior. I’ve had the pleasure of informing several such miscreants that the public entity they serve would not be hiring an attorney to defend them in actions where they violated state law contrary to my advice, and further would not be paying any damages assessed against them. It wasn’t pretty.)
Planning to retire soon. Maybe I’ll take some of my free time to become a lawfare gadfly against them for a change.
I agree with Drum, it’s a punushment.
I am (thankfully) not a lawyer, so I view any trip to a lawyer’s office or to a (gasp1!) courtroom as the closest to Hell that I ever want to come.
NTTAWWT lawyers, it’s just dealing with that aspect of our society is best avoided if possible AFAIC. I’d rather meet with a roomful of Ebola patients than deal with our legal system.
Because respirators and body suits will protect one from Ebola sufferers .. )
My objection to legal entanglements includes an aversion to the security checkpoints at the courthouse. Any place where I am not permitted to wear my Buck knife on my belt is a place where I am not a free man.
I don’t care how easily dismissed a malicious legal process might be, if it is directed at me and forces me to enter a liberty-free zone for even a moment, I will hold it personally against the originator of the cause.
One reason I’m retiring, serr8d. This morning I was going over the daily case list for New England cases filed and remarked to myself that everybody is a victim and wants their day in court. I suppose it’s better than dueling, but there are days I’d rather bring out a flintlock instead of a pen.
ima consult counsel
brb
Don’t blame you at all, RI.
One response that occurred to me: “If you want to know the content of my sermons, come to church to hear them.”
Another response, stolen from a Facebook friend: “You know those sermons you subpoenaed? Gosh darn it, wouldn’t you know, my hard drive crashed, and we can’t recover them.”
I’d rather someone point out that a court that does this sort of thing has earned the contempt of any sane person around.
Look! If pastors are stoopid enough to file for 501(c) 4 protections from the Federal Friggin’ Government (so’s they can be for-real Non-Profits) then they deserve what they get.
Compare and contrast:
1. a spiritual, free “Shepherd” to a flock of voluntary participants is free to call meetings at his own home or another building, the church’s donors and donations are confidential and the pastor can damn well say whatever he wants to them, including mixing political prognistication with spiritual advise.
And 2. a supplicant Pastor wants to avoid paying taxes on ‘donations’ tithed by voluntary participants to his association (or Church) so he files for an IRS category, publishes his donations and donors quarterly to a government agency, and CANNOT speak freely about matters political to his flock.
One of these “pastors” is a supplicant to statists’ speech codes and to financial audit from radicalized government agencies, both near and far. He is just another (c) 4 in the Progressives’ plantation of non-profits. But one of these Pastors escapes regulatory crucifixion by refusing to submit to the intrusions of government overseers and remains unfettered in his liturgy in front of his parishioners.
Which one would you trust to shoot in the right direction when the unraveling begins, the begging supplicant cocooned in an IRS category with the rest of the Progressives’ mewling herds of NGO’s, or the unapologetic, unswayed servant to God?
When Obama advertised that America is a “Muslim Nation,” he was only stating the obvious: Every Baptist, Mormon or Methodist church with a non-profit classification on an IRS computer is, to the Harvardists running our country, just another sharia-compliant group performing its requisite Haj to the Progressives’ Mecca to kiss the
black rockthe IRS.Allah hu Akbar! or Amen! What’s it gonna be?
Most places have zoning restrictions that would get him busted for holding services in his home.
The “another building” space will cost money, which requires fundraising, which will leave a paper trail and will be considered personal income by the IRS.
Not to mention the fact that most people don’t have homes large enough to gather in more than about a dozen to a score, and that many would require being seated in more than one room. I live in a 2,100 sq ft home, and I couldn’t get our entire family together (about 20) without putting them in two different rooms — simply not enough floor space to allow for that many chairs and couches in any given room. Not to mention the parking of all those vehicles, especially in a residential neighborhood.
Which brings us back to McGehee’s hassles with “another building”. That involves rent, insurance, utilities, nosy neighbors, security for the days off, and all the rest.