Subpoenas in Houston - 10/24

        Recently, the city of Houston, Texas, issued subpoenas to five pastors in the Houston area. These subpoenas are documents that say “We can use your documents (sermons) against you in court if they contain content about any of the following: HERO (Houston Equal Rights Ordinance), the Petition (a petition against basically all that the mayor has put in place, which the city attorney discounted many signatures of because of “technicalities”) Mayor Annise Parker (the first openly gay mayor in a major city in America who is behind these subpoenas), homosexuality, or gender identity.” These subpoenas were sent against these five pastors because of “The Petition”, which they weren’t even behind, but since they support the reasoning for it, they were targeted.

        Because these subpoenas were such a scandal, the government officials who were behind them tried to distance themselves from the subpoenas as much as possible. The subpoenas were changed to remove the word “sermon”, but putting sugar on a pile of manure won’t make it a cake.  Parker even said “There was some deliberate misinterpretation on the other side.” I don’t see how there can be misinterpretation when the subpoenas said “Don’t talk about these things that, as pastors, you should talk about, especially if they hurt my [Parker’s] feelings.” It’s blatantly obvious that Parker was trying to force her political agenda into church (or out of, depending how you look at it) which is a violation of the First Amendment.

        The famous “separation of church and state” came from a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the concerned Danbury Baptist Church in 1802 assuring them that not a single denomination of the church would be the official church of the United States. Basically, this meant that the government wouldn’t be forcibly involved in religious practices. Now that it is, people are concerned about what will happen next. Putting a silencer on a gun doesn’t make it any less deadly.