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City of Houston demands pastors turn over sermons

Gr8hope

Gr8hope

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City of Houston demands pastors turn over sermons

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....

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

I think this crosses the line between church and state and hope the ministers can stand up to the demands.
 
Jon

Jon

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wow so many things

first and foremost if true I have a huge problem with this. Y''all know I've no love for religion but this at first glance does appear to be a violation of the first amendment.

Second, I italicized if true for a reason. This one in fact http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/...g-fake-story-about-persecution-of-christians/ The author, Todd Starnes is a known and proven liar. Plenty of sources out there if you care to google

all that said there are some additional nuances here. You'd never know it by how little they get punished for it, if ever, but churches must remain 100% neutral in their politics in order to retain Tax Exempt status. That means no bashing candidates as well as no outwardly supporting them or telling their congretation who to vote for. Personally I'd love to see churches called out for this or at least start paying taxes.

In the end I'll say their sermons are protected speech as long as they are not specifically telling anyone who to vote for. I'll try to look into some non-starnes sources later to figure out what is really up here


edit to add that I cannot find a source on this that isn't just someone reporting that Fox/Starnes reported this with a quick google news search. If anyone finds a non Todd Starnes source for this please let me know.
 
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PacadermaTideUs

PacadermaTideUs

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Simply Wow. This is not just an issue of religious liberty. This is an issue of freedom of speech. The state does not have a right to demand transcripts of your private conversations without solidly grounded justification (suspicion of criminal conspiracy, direct bearing on pending litigation, etc). As these pastors are not part of the lawsuit, there is no rational or legal justification for the city's demands. Pure and simple harassment.
 
TexasBama

TexasBama

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Jon said:
wow so many things

first and foremost if true I have a huge problem with this. Y''all know I've no love for religion but this at first glance does appear to be a violation of the first amendment.

Second, I italicized if true for a reason. This one in fact http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/...g-fake-story-about-persecution-of-christians/ The author, Todd Starnes is a known and proven liar. Plenty of sources out there if you care to google

all that said there are some additional nuances here. You'd never know it by how little they get punished for it, if ever, but churches must remain 100% neutral in their politics in order to retain Tax Exempt status. That means no bashing candidates as well as no outwardly supporting them or telling their congretation who to vote for. Personally I'd love to see churches called out for this or at least start paying taxes.

In the end I'll say their sermons are protected speech as long as they are not specifically telling anyone who to vote for. I'll try to look into some non-starnes sources later to figure out what is really up here


edit to add that I cannot find a source on this that isn't just someone reporting that Fox/Starnes reported this with a quick google news search. If anyone finds a non Todd Starnes source for this please let me know.
Click to expand...
http://www.chron.com/news/politics/...ermons-in-equal-rights-5822403.php?forceWeb=1
 
Jon

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TexasBama said:
http://www.chron.com/news/politics/...ermons-in-equal-rights-5822403.php?forceWeb=1
Click to expand...
thank you, weird that it didn't come up The Chronicle is Houston's paper after all.

The City is clearly overstepping their bounds here. If they want to know whats in the sermon go watch them. If they see an issue violating election law or IRS code for non-profits they should report it immediately. For the sermons they missed? The churches should and are well within their rights to refuse. I'd hope the local ACLU office would step up to their defense.
 
J

jps1983

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Wow... If a pastor and congregation want to be believe something unpopular, let them. Just another illustration of thought police. How any atty in the mayor's office or the city attorney thought this was a good idea is beyond me...
 
cuda.1973

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Jon said:
I'd hope the local ACLU office would step up to their defense.
Click to expand...
Surely, you jest.................

"No, and don't call me 'Shirley'."

(Yet another example of how some things are too hard to resist. Especially for a nerd.)

Welcome to Ameritopia!
 
cuda.1973

cuda.1973

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The proposed change in the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance would specify that no business open to the public could deny a transgender person entry to the restroom consistent with his or her gender identity.
Click to expand...
Paging Erika Cartman....................(last week's South Park).
 
selmaborntidefan

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Oh puh-leeze....don't any of you smart and intelligent people here act even the slightest bit surprised.

Btw - I'm totally on board with Jon (he and I are polar opposites on religion but seem to agree on a lot of other things) regarding the tax exempt thing. By the same token I can honestly say this: never in all my years in Baptist churches in the South have I EVER heard any endorsement of candidates or any violations. I'm not stupid enough to think it doesn't go on - I've just never personally seen it. I've seen them remind people Election Day was coming - many times this is because in some places the churches themselves were polling places.

But I've never actually witnessed a firsthand violation. In fact, the ones I've attended knew that not every one of them voted for them so-called values candidates.


But again - none of you need to feign surprise. You were told this was inevitable and a lot of you mocked people who pointed out that was the only logical conclusion. If the feds can deny tax exempt status to Bob Jones University for their "racist" dating policy you can darn sure bet they can deny it to "other forms of discrimination" (even though religion by its very nature is...discriminatory).
 
Displaced Bama Fan

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What's going to be interesting is when she asks the police to enforce this. As much as I can't stand 2nd Baptist's Ed Young, he's been a staunch ally of the police. It will be very interesting how this all plays out.

I'm going to guess the cops in Houston will push back some on enforcing this.
 
C

chanson78

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selmaborntidefan said:
But again - none of you need to feign surprise. You were told this was inevitable and a lot of you mocked people who pointed out that was the only logical conclusion. If the feds can deny tax exempt status to Bob Jones University for their "racist" dating policy you can darn sure bet they can deny it to "other forms of discrimination" (even though religion by its very nature is...discriminatory).
Click to expand...
At this point isn't it just the state/city government level? This case should and needs to be prosecuted with utmost haste. They especially need to make sure that the liberals aren't doing the standard "go after only the white christians because not too many people will care" bit. IE Like CA said, if this isn't universally applied across all denominations and faith in the city this should be relatively easy to get stopped.

I am not a big fan of churches, nor local governments in general, but if all of the things stated here are true, this is a pretty heinous overstepping of local governments power. It needs to be fought with extreme vigor from everyone, not just christians.
 
Bama Reb

Bama Reb

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I'm not surprised at all. It was only a matter of time before the LGBT movement used it's strong-arm tactics in such a way.
Yes, a pastor's job is to tend the flock. At times though, he must also fight off the wolves. This is just such an occasion.
 
ValuJet

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How long has this woman been in office?

If she is new, and this is a harbinger of things to come, Houston will be a very ugly place.

There are people who have the recipe for dividing and/or destroying a community.
 
GreatDanish

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I haven't looked into this at all, but it has all the sounds of being a story taken out of context or "extremized." If true, yikes. I mean, this is scary but I can follow the thought. Since churches are not allowed to "politicize" for tax-exemption purposes, any preaching on abortion, homosexuality, death penalty, etc., could be considered political advocacy.

If it was up to me, I would either (A) eliminate "tax-exempt" status (501 (c)), or (B) eliminate property and income/corporate taxes leaving no need for 501 (c) status. Since we don't do those things, government HAS to keep an eye on churches to ensure they are jumping through the right hoops to remain tax-exempt. And that is not any kind of separation of church and state.
 
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