The First Amendment vs. Political Correctness

Recently in Houston, Texas, that city's
mayor had its municipal government
subpoena the sermons of several local
pastors in order to --- are you all sitting
down, my wonderful readers? --- examine
the contents for evidence of so-called
"hate speech". George Orwell, call your
office!

Here's what happened: Houston Mayor
Annise Parker and City Attorney David
Feldman wanted to see if the pastors in
their churches were trying to drum up
support for a petition drive to overturn
Houston's Equal Rights Ordinance.
This local law reiterates many federally
covered civil rights laws while also
allowing people to use the gender-
labeled public restroom of their choice, i.e
a man could thus use the women's
lavatory and a woman could use the
men's facility. Apparently, the pastors
are politically conservative as are most
of the congregants in their churches, and
have a huge problem with the rest room
provision. The pastors did not have copies
of the petition with them in their churches
to get their members to sign right there on
the spot, by the account from conservative
online publication Personal Liberty that
your favorite Peasant has read. But the
mayor and her legal beagle were sufficiently
incensed that anyone, especially clergy, would
oppose their cherished law and its politically
correct essence that they would demand to see
the notes and drafts of the pastors' sermons to
their flocks to investigate if they were inciting
hatred for the people who would choose to
step inside of the rest room of the gender opposite
of their own. This is political correctness at its
worst, and a grave threat to the First Amendment
of the Constitution.

Houston passed an anti-discrimination ordinance
in May, supporting a bill strongly favored by
the mayor, who is a lesbian. She described its
passage as being "the most satisfying and most
personally meaningful thing that I will do as mayor".
City Attorney Feldman stated publicly that he
had no qualms about the purpose or the scope of
the subpoenas, declaring "If they (the pastors)
choose to do this inside the church, choose to
do this from the pulpit, then they open the door to
the questions being asked." Chilling comments,
are they not? So much for the First Amendment,
and the Separation of Church and State that the
left-wingers love to spout when a person of the
cloth says something that they vehemently
disagree with; apparently they are not the least
bit troubled by the union of these two entities,
provided that the state gets to dictate to the church
regarding what it ought do and say and what it
ought not do and say.

A petition to hold a referendum on the law garnered
three times as many signatures as were required, but were
declared "invalid" by City Attorney Feldman. So much
for democracy. A voter lawsuit challenging Feldman's
action is currently pending. The battle lines are thus
drawn.

There are three things about the Separation of Church and
State that all Americans, public office holders and
everyday citizens should know: One, that it discourages
the state from establishing a state religion and
church, i.e. the Church of England, and the Russian
Orthodox Church, the latter having been infiltrated,
perverted, and co-opted by the Russian government in
the days of the Soviet Union and still under the thumb
of the state there. Two, it also discourages the state from
controlling the activities and words spoken in places
of worship. And three, it is not at all found in the
Constitution; it is, rather, a guide for establishing
mutually respectful behavior between the state and
houses of faith. Lefties such as Mayor Parker and
her hack Feldman do not have knowledge of this, nor
do they care; power and domination over the people
are what they concern themselves with. Equal rights
are all well and good; dragging clergy into court for
expressing convictions shared with their flocks are
neither well nor good. There are some churches that
your faithful Peasant does not attend and never will,
some being Catholic churches, as I am myself am a
Catholic. But although I disagree with some of what
is spoken, shared and taught in these churches I most
certainly do not want the government at any level
regulating what they say, share and teach. That flies
in the face of the principles of what this country was
founded on and stands for. A wonderful conservative
legal group, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF),
is representing five of the pastors and their churches in
their legal war with the city of Houston, and has filed
a legal brief questioning the constitutionality of
Houston's subpoena.

The gravamen of the ADF's case states that "City
Council members are supposed to be public servants,
not 'Big Brother" overlords who will tolerate no
dissent or challenge. In this case, they have embarked
upon a witch-hunt, and we are asking the court to stop
it", according to ADF's Erik Stanley, the attorney
working on behalf of the plaintiffs. Your beloved
Peasant couldn't state it better himself. The ADF also
condemned the city's handling of the petition to hold
a referendum on the legislation.

It is the Age of Obama, my dear readers. The arrogant,
elitist, unconstitutional ideas of our commissar of a
president and his fellow Democrat party pols, and
and their lefty allies have now spilled out of our nation's
capitol and capital and into the states and municipalities
around our country. This is why elections matter, and
why our participation in them is vital.

And another election is coming on November 4.


MEM