I hadn't heard anything about Houston Mayor Annise Parker recently. The last I remember was when the city council passed a human rights ordinance that ruffled the fundie feathers. Now they are trying to get a measure on the ballot to repeal it. The process in not going smoothly.
Houston told pastors to hand over their sermons for an investigation. Is that legal?
Five pastors from Houston recently had their sermons subpoenaed for an investigation by the city. Many religious conservatives are angry at this move; a headline on Breitbart proclaimed: "Religious liberty under attack."
What actually happened, and why does it matter?
They need 17K valid signatures to get the measure on the ballot. They submitted petitions with 50K signatures. However,
These signatures were then taken to the city, but ultimately, "the Houston City Attorney — appointed by the Mayor — deemed many of the 50,000 signatures invalid," according to Josh Blackman, Assistant Professor of Law at the South Texas College of Law specializing in constitutional law.
The groups who collected the signatures then sued the city, which is when things got messy. As Media Matters for America explains it, "the lawsuit claims that the City Attorney 'wrongly determined that they had not gathered enough valid signatures' to qualify for a vote to repeal HERO."
In response to the lawsuit, the city issued subpoenas against five pastors in the Houston area, requiring that they turn over "all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to HERO, the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession." Officials want to find out if and how pastors might have instructed opponents to collect signatures. As New York Magazine's Kate Zavadski says, "What exactly the pastors said, and what the collectors knew about the rules, is one of the key issues in pending litigation around whether opponents of the law gathered enough signatures for a referendum."
The link has a long discussion about the back and forth. At this point the city has agreed to redraw the subpoenas to make them less broad. Everyone is waiting to see what the new version looks like. This doesn't sound like a matter that will die down any time soon.
One of the things for which I am thankful, is that I don't live in Houston.