City of Houston demands pastors turn over sermons

A judge in their pocket won't help them with this issue. They need to look into getting rid of the morons who advised them and recommended subpoenas, as those idiots will get them sued and removed from office. A smart lawyer for the churches would be looking for official oppression violations and RICO violations. This Mayor had better hope she doesn't get caught in lying when she claimed she didn't know anything about them.

 

by the time they get to her, her hard drive will have been scratched..............and all of her emails will have been wiped, I mean lost......

 

I haven't seen any distortion, other than that from the Mayor and her attorneys.

 

Given that most of the people who surround hacks like her are sociopaths, somebody will rat her out or blackmail her.

 

Their level of political activism or tax status is IRRELEVANT to the question before the court, the validity of the petition submitted and the validity of the mayor over ruling the city Secretaries decision of its validity.

 

I'm curious as to how city attorney Feldman managed to disenfranchise so many signatures, AFTER the city secretary's office had validated 31,000 of the 50,000 signatures.

 

Yes. We're going to see some resignations over this, and some elections lost by the hacks who thought this was a great idea.

 

Hopefully.

But what we won't see is outrage from the gays and liberals over this attempt to control speech, simply because it disagrees with them.

Or admit that the gay-agenda exists.

 

Hell, its an attempt to subvert democracy. The mayor cant have her LGBT ordinance subjected to the approval of the residence of houston.

 

Yes. I haven't seen any threads babbling all about how the Pope coming out in favor of sucking up to sexual fetishists should cost the church 'tax exemptions n stuff'.

 

Exactly!

Excellent point.

If it aligns with their way of thinking, the church is ok.... if it stands against their way of thinking, they should lose tax exempt status and hand over all private communications.

I guess homosexuality is only "politics" when they disagree with what's being said.


Yeah... no agenda there.

 

Edit:

I just saw the Pope changed his mind on this ?! I guess he finally read the Bible or something.

My guess is the gays will now be calling for an end to tax-exempt status for the Catholic churches, and subpoena the sermons

 

Here's another example of a bigoted hateful pastor violating the principle of the 'separation of church and state' and engaging in politics by, well, inventing the principle of separation of church and state ...

http://religion.wikia.com/wiki/Thomas_Helwys

These fundies are just obnoxious and need to be put in their place. The 'New Atheists' and the Mayor of Houston should build a statue to King James I, the defender of repression of these uppity fundies to show their appreciation; this Helwys guy was clearly evil and intolerant.

 

Houston Changes Story in Battle with Pastors – Claims Petition never Validated
Here is where you begin to see the level of the corruption going on. This is where the cockroaches run and hide as they are exposed to the light. After the city had demanded the sermons and communications from pastors to their congregations, area pastors became very vocal in opposition to city's demands. Following the offensive measure by American (and pastors throughout the world) to send lesbian mayor Annise Parker sermons and Bibles, the city not only stepped back from their previous subpoena, but is changing its version of the story. Now, the city attorney is claiming that the citizens' initiative that challenged their wicked "bathroom bill" was never "validated."




The first thing that shows they are openly lying is the fact that the city secretary gave sworn testimony to the contrary. Why is that important? As we reported previously, the city secretary, Anna Russell, who has served Houston for more than 40 years, is the one the validated the signatures to determine that the petition had met the legal requirements, which it did. In fact, it got three times more signatures than required.

In a deposition of Ms. Russell by Andy Taylor, the attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, she said her understanding was that "that the [city] charter provides that the city secretary determine the number of qualified voters who sign the petition."

"And based on that understanding, you did that, and the result of your work was that 17,846 signatures had been validated," asked Taylor. "And that was more than the minimum number necessary, correct?"

"That's correct," she answered.

However, did the city mayor, council, or city attorney David Feldman come out and claim there was no validation? Absolutely not. Instead, they attempted to discredit over 2/3s of the signatures to get them under the required number and demand that five Houston area pastors turnover their sermons and communications with members.

WND conducted an interview with Taylor. He said that the city's latest filing was a "'head fake' to try to keep the state Supreme Court from intervening and ordering the city to follow its charter and act on the petition."

According to WND:


He said the city essentially brought up three points – that the Supreme Court doesn't have jurisdiction because a trial is scheduled in January, that there are disagreements a trial judge needs to decide first and the case needs to run its course through the system because of arguments of time, signatures and other issues.


But, he said, the charter requires immediate action on such petitions, not a leisurely trip through the court system.


He said the violations are ongoing and need to be addressed.


And he said there are no real issues to decide, since the city secretary, as required in the city charter, ruled there were enough signatures on the petition.


In fact, she noted that she only looked through about one-third of the signatures submitted, because the minimum already had been reached, and there was no point in spending more time.


It wasn't until after she had prepared her report, she said in the deposition, that the city attorney came to her and told her that he had invalidated most of the signatures and that she ultimately revised her report to add that statement.





Taylor told WND that Russell also, in a memo about the dispute, had used the word "certify" regarding the petition signatures.


"She did her job," he said.


Taylor said the mayor and city attorney "ought to be ashamed of themselves."


"Our clients have a constitutional right of free speech, of freedom of religion, freedom to petition government for redress," he said. "It's absolutely unbelievable that the mayor in her zeal to defend a 'gay-lesbian' ordinance would trample the voting rights of over a million people in Houston."


In her official report about the petition, Russell said, "As of July 27, 2014, the number of qualified city of Houston voters who signed the petition had been verified with a margin of error."


It wasn't until after Russell had verified the signatures that city Attorney David Feldman tried to get her to alter her findings by adding to her report the following:

"According to the city attorney's office and reviewed by the city secretary the analysis of the city attorney's office, 2,750 pages containing 16,010 signatures do not contain sufficient acknowledgment as required by the charter. Therefore, according to the city attorney's office only 2,449 pages containing 15,249 signatures can lawfully be considered toward the signatures required."

Additionally, in all of her years of service to the city of Houston, she never had one incident of a city attorney attempting to interfere with her duties.

"She also confirmed she had nothing to do with the affidavit section of the petition and that the scrutiny applied to it was entirely the work of Feldman."

In the meantime, while city hall is conducting its lawlessness, Christians and Christian pastors, as well as many who are not Christian are standing up and being very vocal about the tyrannical actions of Mayor Parker's administration, the city council and the city attorney.

Perhaps you are looking to "do something." Well, how about sending Ms. Parker a response to the city's lawlessness and actions against its citizens. Here's her contact information.

Mayor Annise D. Parker
City of Houston
P.O. Box 1562 Houston, Texas 77251
Phone: (713) 837-0311
Email: mayor@houstontx.gov

Read more at http://freedomoutpost.com/2014/10/h...petition-never-validated/#ljjSfcgE6Jb0iSRs.99

 

the phrase, "All we want is the right to get married" keeps running through my mind
lying (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)s...........

 

I have found that liberals don't see "lies" the same way normal people do, but see them as an acceptable alternative option for any given situation. They know that an honest person dealing with a liar is at a great disadvantage. That's why I normally don't deal with them. I drop people after they lie to me once and see it as an un repairable offense in any business or personal relationship.