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October 2014 A.D. Houston: Significant Threat to Constitutional
Liberties
Another Significant Threat To Constitutional Liberties
Credit: Cody Duty
In May of this year the Houston
city council passed the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) that requires
businesses and workplaces to make available restroom facilities not according
to sex but according to gender identity. A group of Houston area pastors has
been organizing and vigorously opposing this bill. In response the city has
issued subpoenas for materials
produced, including sermons, by several of the ministers. It seems reasonably
clear that the Alliance Defending Freedom is
correct, that this is an attempt by the City of Houston to intimidate ministers
into shutting up about the HERO ordinance and about the attempt by radicals to
redefine human sexuality (sex vs gender). Ordinarily the
local coverage of these issues is better simply because the local media are
closer and more aware of all the facts but in this case the national media
seems to be doing a better job telling the whole story. The local pastors group
generated 50,000 signatures to get a referendum on the ballot to overturn the
HERO act. The city disqualified the petition because of alleged
“irregularities” and now seems to be trying to silence vocal opponents.
More than 10 years ago pastors in Canada began to face sanctions for speaking up against homosexuality and
homosexual marriage. They warned us that it could happen here. I was one
of those who did not listen. I thought that the constitutional differences
between the USA and Canada were enough that, whatever happened in Canada, we
would be safe here. I also thought that, after the Hillarycare
debacle, nothing like it would ever pass. Wrong again. I didn’t think that
Americans would elect an inexperienced former community organizer with a set of
dubious associations with radical anarchist bombers (the Weather Underground), a weak
record in state politics, and virtually no record in national politics, to
become President of the United States of America. Three strikes and I’m out. So
I want a do over. It really is time to pay attention. The assumption that “it
can’t happen here because of the Bill of Rights” is obviously wrong. A
constitution only protects liberties if we elect people who are committed to
the constitution, who, in turn, appoint people to the bench who are also
committed to constitutional liberties. Clearly it is no longer safe to assume
that, whatever our economic and social differences, we’re all committed to
basic constitutional protections. We live in a time when:
The IRS wants to know the
content of your
prayers.
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When Cal Sate University
has forced Inter-Varsity Fellowship off campus for believing and practicing the
Christian religion.
When bakers and florists
are fined and put out of business because of religious objections to catering
homosexual weddings.
When it became necessary not only for Congress to pass the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) but to call the Department of Defense
to heel because of its unconstitutional
behavior restricting religious liberty.
When a police captain is being punished by his
superiors for failing to attend a meeting in a local mosque, which the Mosque
advertises as an indoctrination session.
When middle school teachers, in middle America, are
told not to classify children as boys and girls but rather as “purple
penguins.”
When the City of Houston thinks that it is constitutional to
subpoena sermons by ministers for daring to oppose the idea that human beings
belong to one of two sexes, male or female, that gender is a grammatical
category.
We may disagree about whether or how Houston pastors should have
spoken up about this ordinance but the history and constitution of this country
say that they are well within their rights to do so. Yes, there are some limits
on what ministers can say about partisan
politics, unless a leading Democrat politician is in the pulpit, on “the Lord’s
Day,” just before election. In that case all limits are off.
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