City of Houston demands pastors turn over sermons

I don’t think this has anything to do with 501c3. It is about the city of Houston nullifying the collected signatures on the petition.

They are looking for evidence of churches using non-residents to collect signatures. But the subpoena was way too broad and sounds like they are trying to round up pastors who spoke against homosexuality. It makes no sense for them to be doing that since speaking against homosexuality is NOT ILLEGAL. And 501c3 is an IRS statute not something Houston regulates.

Mark

No big conflict here; just correcting your understanding of the law. Again, 501C3 allows churches to act politically; just not to endorse (or reject) candidates.

Let’s assume it’s not tax law, however, and ask ourselves a simple question; if indeed petition circulators must be Houston voters (a requirement not in Texas law, BTW, see below), and indeed churches coordinated this, was a crime committed?

The simple answer is no. Churches would then have simply wasted their time collecting petitions that were of no value. Ever heard of someone prosecuted for circulating a useless petition? Of course not; you simply say you didn’t know that was the law, and you’re off the hook. Here’s the link to state law, BTW:

http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/laws/petitions.shtml

Let’s ask another question; assuming that collecting useless petitions with non-Houston voters is a crime, would a look at the documents requested reveal that pastors had conspired to knowingly defraud the public in this matter? That the pastors (a) persuaded non-voters to collect petitions, (b) knew that the people to collect petitions were non-voters, and (c) conspired to present petitions they knew would be rejected…..why?

BTW, one interesting thing about this is that the city attorney and mayor are NOT empowered by law to approve petitions. That belongs to the city secretary, who had approved them.

http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/9349

So we are up to at least five clear violations of law by the mayor and the city attorney/their minions. I would argue the mayor and the city attorney should resign, and the city attorney should be disbarred as well.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/10/16/texas-attorney-general-tells-…

http://www.wilsoncountynews.com/article.php?id=61828&n=national-news-ag…

Abbott called the subpoenas “aggressive and invasive” and said they show “no regard for the very serious First Amendment considerations at stake.”

“Whether you intend it to be so or not, your action is a direct assault on the religious liberty guaranteed by the First Amendment,” Abbott wrote, demanding that the subpoenas be rescinded.

“You should immediately instruct your lawyers to withdraw the city’s subpoenas,” he added.

I think this linked article is pretty well thought out.

http://americanvision.org/11407/houston-demanding-oversight-pastors-sermons/

P.S. - Enjoy the little barb against melinnial eschatology.

Sean, I see what he’s trying to get at, but “discovery” is strictly speaking limited to the facts of the case, which is whether the mayor and the city attorney had the right to void petitions after the city secretary had approved them. Whether churches worked together to get the petitions in has no bearing on that.

Moreover, the mayor further muddled things by noting that she felt the right to subpoena the churches because they’d engaged in political activity—OK, nice diversionary tactic, but wrong. Which is a nice summary of what she’s doing; nice diversionary tactic from the apparent fact that she and her lawyer have illegally voided valid petitions. And there may be a further ulterior motive involved.

Bert,

I completely agree that the sermons are not germane to the case. This is harassment and an attempt to frame the issue as if the pastors violated some (non-existent) rule that they cannot advocate politically from the pulpit. I believe Dr. McDurmon states this in his article, and he believes the courts should slap down the subpoenas.

However, his cautions against inflammatory and hyperbolic rhetoric are germane to our discussion here.