Mayor Of Houston Backs Down On Unconstitutional Demand For Sermons After Major Backlash

When the mayor of Houston demanded that pastors turn over their sermon notes, there was a huge public outcry over Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Speech. Mayor Annise Parker, an outspoken lesbian, has a history of pushing the envelope, and for the large part, she has gotten away with it. Finally, she is backing down after her most outrageous attempt at infringing on common decency and Constitutional principles. She IS in Texas, after all. Did she honestly expect anything different?

Recent years have seen agendas that run contrary to traditional American values exponentially encroaching further and further into the lives of the everyday person. Behaviors that were once relegated to a few places like New Orleans, Las Vegas, or Hollywood, or kept behind closed doors are now being shoved down the throats of people by the very people who whine and cry and bellyache about others judging them or shoving religion down their throats. People are growing weary of the intolerance of the “tolerant” crowd, and increasingly they are pushing back.

The demand for pastors to turn over their sermons was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

If the 5 pastors used pulpits for politics, their sermons are fair game. Were instructions given on filling out anti-HERO petition?-A

— Annise Parker (@AnniseParker) October 15, 2014

An outcry arose, not just in Houston, and not just among pastors. Pastors’ sermons are not fair game. They are protected by the First Amendment Freedom of Religion.

The story of the subpoena issued by the city of Houston to pastors has circulated in some form or other in a wide number of media outlets, including The Inquisitr. Petitions are widely circulating, and social media has taken the story far and wide. The actions of the mayor of Houston are firing up the passions of Patriots, conservatives, Christians, and lovers of liberty everywhere. According to Freedom Outpost, people are refusing to take this unconstitutional demand lying down.

Maybe it takes something so egregious, so antithetical to every value and principle that Constitutional Americans hold dear to cause them to rise up and say, “This stops here.”

It appears to have worked. Breitbart reports that the mayor of Houston has backed down on the subpoenas. She and the city attorney, David Feldman, admit that the subpoenas are “too broad.” Yes. Yes, they are. One is left to wonder if they would have had that dawning of revelation had their tyrannical demand been met with meek submission. Highly dubious.

The fight originally began when Mayor Parker pushed for her signature piece of legislation, her legacy, the H.E.R.O. bill – Houston Equal Rights Ordinance. Furor ensued when a provision of that ordinance called for people with the anatomy of one sex to have access to use the restrooms of the opposite sex, if they felt that they were leaning that direction. In other words, grown men could use the ladies room with little girls if they just claimed they were gay, leading the entire bill to be dubbed “the bathroom bill.”

Somehow, in her passion to shove through her agenda through the H.E.R.O. bill, Mayor Parker didn’t stop to think of the ramifications of that single facet of the bill. Obviously, the community did. It wasn’t hard for the average parent, not blinded by a gay/lesbian/transgender agenda, to see that this bill was pedophile heaven. All a child molester at a mall would have to do is say, “I’m gay,” and he would have free access to any girl using the ladies room. There is a reason that mothers of boys have made their sons trot to the women’s restroom with them on outings, far after they were capable of going to the men’s room on their own. As a general rule, women in restrooms don’t molest children. On the other hand, a number of boys have admitted to being molested in the men’s room, while their unsuspecting mothers waited outside.

A bill like Parker’s is horrifying to parents trying to protect their children.

What is to stop a teenage boy of low character from following the cute cheerleader into the ladies room? Nothing in “the bathroom bill” would prevent such a person from pretending to be transgender in order to sexually harass a victim. The bill is rife with problems, and the people of Houston saw that. And they pushed back.

While people rallied and passed around petitions, that provision of the bill was removed before its passage. It is unclear whether the people trying to stop the bill were unaware that it had been removed, or whether they were aware, but pressed on with the petition even so, distrustful of a legislative body who would try to pass such a dangerous provision. If that was in the bill, what else is buried in the bill, hidden by legal language, where they would have to do a Pelosi and “pass the bill to find out what was in it.” It is obvious that the Pelosi tactic was one of the most harmful things to ever be thrust on the American people. What other nuggets of refuse were hidden in the Palmer bill?

After the petitions garnered three times the required signatures, most of the signatures were thrown out as invalid, and a legal battle has ensued. It was in the heat of that battle that the Houston mayor decided to push farther than any other American legislator has had the gall to do. She subpoenaed all kinds of communication from area pastors, including their sermons. The five pastors specifically named had nothing to do with the lawsuit. Many see the “overreach” by Mayor Palmer as a fishing expedition, to see what she can find to condemn the pastors.

Newsflash. This is America. This is not communist China, where the churches have to register and have their sermons approved by the government. But Palmer’s actions are an abuse of power which hearken to a tyrannical regime that has no place in the United States of America — land of the free and home of the brave.

Americans have been the proverbial frog in the pot, slowly being boiled, while our freedoms gradually erode away. Some try to wake the rest up, but for most, the erosion of liberty has been incremental enough to lull the masses to sleep. Actions like those of Annise Parker are like an electric jolt, startling even the complacent patriots into remembering who they are, jarring them from their slumber, calling them to action. For now, their actions appear to be effective, and the mayor of Houston has backed down, undoubtedly to regroup for another round. This time, the citizens are ready.

[images via Mike Crupi/Catholic Courier, BarbWire, and AbOUT Magazine]