Houston, we have a 1st Amendment problem!

It all started in September when Houston Mayor Annise Parker and City Attorney David Feldman issued an “overly broad” subpoena for the sermons of select ministers who opposed the city’s equal rights ordinance concerning “transgender” bathroom usage.

 

Because of intense national opposition from even Texas’ attorney general, this past Wednesday Parker and Feldman appeared to recant or at least reduce their flagrant overreach and disregard of the ministers’ legal protections under the First Amendment. By the weekend, however, the truth came out that they were only using political smoke and mirrors to try and simmer the patriot fury but not change course to constitutional compliance.

 

First, Parker and Feldman tried to fly under the radar by issuing the subpoenas to the five pastors because they had associations with Christian conservative activists, who were rightly suing the city over its claim that they did not have sufficient numbers of signatures for the equal rights ordinance’ referendum. (They actually collected 50,000 signatures though they needed only 17,259 required.)

 

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