[Akula]

In the middle of this Ebola government meltdown (which is to be expected given how bad the Obamacare launch was + the VA hospital mess and the fact that apparently now even the CDC is politicized) we've got another scandal brewing - this time courtesy of the LGBT crowd.

Apparently Houston's first gay mayor has now issued subpoenas via the city government for copies of the sermons that have recently been given by 5 of the major local churches in order to check them for what I can only assume would be "hate speech" and/or "anti-homosexual content."

Among other things, the subpoenas demand 17 different categories of information that encompass speeches made by the pastors as well as private communications (!!) with their church members.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/10/17/hou...-in-equal/

Pretty Big Brotherish right? But not unexpected, especially given how local, state and Federal government seems to prefer harassing its citizens as opposed to running the place. In this case I guess it's more about the state now not only "protecting" gay rights but now overseeing religion (i.e. gay privilege trumps religious rights). I guess this shows just how empowered the cultural Marxist "Progressive" left is these days and how the SJW new morality has completely overtaken all facet's of American and Western life.

I don't even know what to say about the good ole US of A anymore and where this is all headed (probably to fucking oblivion), but wondering how this thing ends up.

I'm not living in America anymore can somebody help us make sense of all this?

[TheWastelander]

Here are some additional links:

http://www.commdiginews.com/politics-2/h...unt-27879/

Quote:

WASHINGTON, October 14, 2014 — Houston city attorneys took the unusual step, disclosed this week, of subpoenaing sermons delivered by local pastors and ministers opposed to Houston’s new equal rights ordinance. The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) extends equal rights protections to gay and transgender residents, including the right to use the public restroom facilities that they feel best match their gender identity.

The ordinance applies to all businesses serving the public, private employers, housing, city contracting, and city employment. It exempts churches from its provisions. It contains language banning discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, age, disability, national origin, and other categories, but the component dealing with gender identity and sexual orientation has drawn the most attention.

Houston residents opposed to HERO launched a petition drive to repeal the ordinance. The drive obtained over 50,000 signatures, more than the 17,269 required to get a repeal referendum on the ballot, but Mayor Annise Parker, the first open lesbian to serve as Houston’s mayor, had made HERO a centerpiece of her administration. She and the city attorney refused to certify the petition.

According to the mayor’s office, each signature on a petition must be accompanied by the signer’s printed name, address, voter registration number or date of birth, and the date signed. Petition gatherers must have personally signed the petition and have sworn before a notary that the signatures were made in their presence. According to Parker, only 15,249, signatures were valid.

Opponents responded with a lawsuit.

Also they've apparently "backed off" this, which I don't fully believe.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014...-in-trans/

Quote:

However, Ms. Parker, a self-declared lesbian, defended the subpoenas after she was aware of them, according to her Wednesday afternoon statement.

In a post on her Twitter feed late Tuesday, around midnight, Ms. Parker said that issuing subpoenas for sermons was appropriate if the pastors had been active in promoting the signature-gathering effort to overturn the ordinance.

“If the 5 pastors used pulpits for politics, their sermons are fair game,” Ms. Parker said on Twitter. “Were instructions given on filling out anti-HERO petition?”

Senator Ted Cruz has weighed in:

http://blogs.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archiv...being.aspx

Quote:

David Brody: “One of the next battles in this culture war could indeed be right there in the pulpit. Are we going through a potential period or could we very well soon go through a period where pastors are hauled off to jail for a hate crime because they are speaking for traditional marriage?”

Senator Ted Cruz: “I think that is a real risk and you and I have both pointed to that risk in the past and some in the media ridicule that threat saying there is no danger of the government coming after pastors. That is the usual response.”

Senator Ted Cruz: “The specter of government trying to determine if what pastors preach from the pulpit meets with the policy views or political correctness of the governing authorities, that prospect is real and happening now.”

Senator Ted Cruz: “When you subpoena one pastor, you subpoena every pastor. If government has the power to force the pulpit to knuckle under, if government has the power to insist that pastors hand over their sermons for government approval then we’ve lost the very first freedom that begins our bill of rights. We’ve lost the freedom that this country was built on. That’s what this fight is and I very much hope that this serves as a wake-up call to Christians, to people of faith, I hope it serves as a wake-up call to pastors to speak out and make abundantly clear that we will not give up our religious liberty. We will not go quietly into the night but we will stand and fight for principles that are right and true and will speak the truth and the pastors of this country will not be muzzled.

But yes, you are right. The whole thing is Orwellian down to the name "HERO" for the ordinance.

We are seeing more and more of these around the country. Lexington, Kentucky passed a LGBT-friendly ordinance and some gays sued an explicitly Christian t-shirt maker because he refused to make gay pride shirts. They won and he's been forced to go to diversity training.

http://www.kentucky.com/2012/03/26/21272....html?rh=1

http://www.kentucky.com/2012/11/26/24219...inals.html

http://www.kentucky.com/2014/10/07/34680...nated.html

[Sonsowey]

My girlfriend was recently complaining about gay guys using the womens restroom. Now I guess saying that is hate speech in Houston. Weird...

[Dr. Howard]

a subpeona? what the fuck kind of judge would Ok that?

Also, I made this call in another thread that will hipsters coming to austin and california flight headed to Texas its going to be a much more blue state. For some reason SJW types make it their mission to come down on christians like in the same way that some black people have an ax to grind with 'the white man' for whatever reason.

Here in Tennessee its a turf war with clearly defined lines. In the cities like Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga its hipsters but as soon as you cross into suburban and county neighborhoods is church after church after church.

[Sonsowey]

Are men allowed into womens locker rooms now if they feel it best fits their gender identity?

[TheWastelander]

Atheist progressive hipsters have an agenda: more government with them running the show.

All left-wing authoritarian movements have wanted to get rid of Christianity or take it over because it poses a threat to their power.

It tells people: that there are such things as moral absolutes, that there is a higher power than government we should obey, that there is a life after this one, and that we should love one another and be charitable not because we're forced to but because it's the right thing to do and it's what God wants us to do.

They instinctively know that without God, people will be open to all sorts of manipulation in order to fill the spiritual void in their lives.

They want to replace God with government that agrees with their ideology and they've largely been successful over the years, but they won't win in the end.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." - Ephesians 6:12, KJV

[Akula]

(10-17-2014 04:43 PM)Dr. Howard Wrote:  

a subpeona? what the fuck kind of judge would Ok that?

Also, I made this call in another thread that will hipsters coming to austin and california flight headed to Texas its going to be a much more blue state. For some reason SJW types make it their mission to come down on christians like in the same way that some black people have an ax to grind with 'the white man' for whatever reason.

Here in Tennessee its a turf war with clearly defined lines. In the cities like Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga its hipsters but as soon as you cross into suburban and county neighborhoods is church after church after church.

We're in a very fucked up part of US history now and nothing seems off limits. Judicial restraint is non-existant and the SJW crowed are using the courts to push their agenda more than the Congress.

James Madison's worries about "Factions" have fully come to pass across the board (both on domestic issues like this and in the international sphere as well) and the inmates are running the asylum in many places.

Re "gay rights" it's gone well beyond that now to full on promotion of the gay lifestyle and actual promotion of it as a clear alternative to heterosexuality. The powers that be are not only glorifying homosexuality in the government, media and workplace but also attacking free speech and Christianity on all fronts in the name of "protecting" XYZ "victims."

[Uzisuicide]

Hate speech to the left = anything they disagree with. That's how they win. Demonize anyone who stands in the way of their agenda until only two side are left. One who agrees with then and the other who is afraid to speak out against them. Each of which are no better than the other.

[Dusty]

Today's "progressives" = everything they like needs to be compulsory and everything they don't like needs to be banned.

[Nalka]

Makes me glad I got the hell out. Expect more. In the churches in your business in your home. There will be nowhere to hide in america. They have already imposed a exit tax for renouncing your citizenship. Expect it to go up. Don't wait till you go to jail because a women felt "threatened" or lose your business because you said or did something politically incorrect. Get while the getting is good.

[Akula]

(10-17-2014 05:26 PM)Nalka Wrote:  

Makes me glad I got the hell out. Expect more. In the churches in your business in your home. There will be nowhere to hide in america. They have already imposed a exit tax for renouncing your citizenship. Expect it to go up. Don't wait till you go to jail because a women felt "threatened" or lose your business because you said or did something politically incorrect. Get while the getting is good.

US is already pretty much the only 1st world country that taxes it's citizens on world wide income (even in foreign currency). And applies it's laws abroad in general.

America...so free you can't leave.

Still when I go home everyone is like "when are you coming back to the greatest country in the world?"

[Libertas]

Quote:

The drive obtained over 50,000 signatures, more than the 17,269 required to get a repeal referendum on the ballot, but Mayor Annise Parker, the first open lesbian to serve as Houston’s mayor, had made HERO a centerpiece of her administration. She and the city attorney refused to certify the petition.

Unbelievable. We have gotten to the point that government is now openly defying the law in devotion to an ideology. This is blatant, unmasked tyranny.

Back in the day, this sort of stuff would have been grounds for calling out the state militia. In the election of 1800 for example, several governors were ready to call out their state militias if there were any shenanigans (as it appeared there might be) in transferring power to Jefferson. The message was clear: a government acting contrary to the law would be overthrown, as was the right of any free people.

But the times of Jefferson are long gone. Should the lawsuit fail, there will be no militia to remove this mayor. There will only be shuffling of feet and bowed heads as the Cultural Marxist parade continues over the a soulless nation.

[Soothesayer]

Canada has been going in this direction for some time, and when they (Canadian parliament) caved to Obama/Pelosi's FATCA bullshit, I knew that the Canadian government was nothing but TRAITORS willing to snitch on their own citizens (1 million of them) by ordering banks to spy on americans for the IRS. Canada is not a place any american should run to if the shit hits the fan.

1.) Traitors
2.) IRS
3.) Blizzards
4.) They DESPISE handguns in ANY form
5.) Sky high taxes-- 35 bucks for a case of beer

On the other hand, if you're the Jerimiah Johnson type who can trap, skin, hunt with bows and live off the land and off the grid, Canada might be your place if you don't mind living somewhere where you've got the whole lake to yourself.

[OnyxTiger]

FOX interviewed one of the pastors whose sermons were subpoenaed. Asked whether he had any reservations about his sermons being taken, he responds, "the only thing I ask is that she actually reads them." Graceful answer as expected, but I wouldn't hold my breath thinking she would, at least not looking for the actual context in it all.

The irony is how this whole campaign is built on the premise of tolerance, how anybody who doesn't tolerate the beliefs, lifestyle, values of anyone else, etc. is acting outside of "American" values... Christians have it in their precepts to tolerate to the point of being jailed and sometimes even killed. If the worst you're going to get from a Christian leader is their intolerance of another's lifestyle - not withholding the fact that they have no inclination to jail you, kill you, injure or steal from you, and the only harm they could cause against the LGBT community is merely hurting your feelings because of a difference of beliefs... then who's really the ones acting out of our real American values here? To think that this is evidence that the constitutional right of free speech is being threatened, in short, defines failure at its finest.

Oh look, Obama isn't responding...

[Dr. Howard]

(10-17-2014 04:53 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  

Atheist progressive hipsters have an agenda: more government with them running the show.

All left-wing authoritarian movements have wanted to get rid of Christianity or take it over because it poses a threat to their power.

It tells people: that there are such things as moral absolutes, that there is a higher power than government we should obey, that there is a life after this one, and that we should love one another and be charitable not because we're forced to but because it's the right thing to do and it's what God wants us to do.

They instinctively know that without God, people will be open to all sorts of manipulation in order to fill the spiritual void in their lives.

They want to replace God with government that agrees with their ideology and they've largely been successful over the years, but they won't win in the end.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." - Ephesians 6:12, KJV

This turned a light on in my head. Are christians on the right like Unions are to the left? Conservative power has gone well of its way to dismantle unions because they make well organized voting blocks and activists. Churches have the same effect.

I wonder if there are political strategists thinking "man, if we could just bust up these churches the right would be much less organized" It would make complete sense to me if true.

[It_is_my_time]

(10-21-2014 04:35 AM)Dr. Howard Wrote:  

(10-17-2014 04:53 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  

Atheist progressive hipsters have an agenda: more government with them running the show.

All left-wing authoritarian movements have wanted to get rid of Christianity or take it over because it poses a threat to their power.

It tells people: that there are such things as moral absolutes, that there is a higher power than government we should obey, that there is a life after this one, and that we should love one another and be charitable not because we're forced to but because it's the right thing to do and it's what God wants us to do.

They instinctively know that without God, people will be open to all sorts of manipulation in order to fill the spiritual void in their lives.

They want to replace God with government that agrees with their ideology and they've largely been successful over the years, but they won't win in the end.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." - Ephesians 6:12, KJV

This turned a light on in my head. Are christians on the right like Unions are to the left? Conservative power has gone well of its way to dismantle unions because they make well organized voting blocks and activists. Churches have the same effect.

I wonder if there are political strategists thinking "man, if we could just bust up these churches the right would be much less organized" It would make complete sense to me if true.

Without a doubt.

The goal of the left/Democrats is to destroy the family unit so that single mother households are dependent upon the govt.

The church stand for family values. So the two sides are at odds.

Slowly the church is changing though, which is good for the left. I believe Christian churches in the USA today are about 70% female v. 30% male, because it is all feel good crap and you go girl bullshit. So even if the left cannot destroy the church community, if only they can change it, they will have won this battle.

Pretty much at this point, the battle between the left and the right are...

Right: Beta males, the better quality women (good married mothers), low upper class business owners.

V.

Left: Lower rung males. The exploding number of single lower rung females. The elites who own the govt. and can destroy competition with govt. regulation.

So destroying the family unit is a huge goal of the left, and the source is often the church itself.

[Tytalus]

I'd like to see them at least persecute all religions equally. Find out what is being said in the local mosques, synagogues, Hindu temples etc. They might find more hateful speech in the non Christian religions....

[TravelerKai]

(10-21-2014 04:35 AM)Dr. Howard Wrote:  

(10-17-2014 04:53 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  

Atheist progressive hipsters have an agenda: more government with them running the show.

All left-wing authoritarian movements have wanted to get rid of Christianity or take it over because it poses a threat to their power.

It tells people: that there are such things as moral absolutes, that there is a higher power than government we should obey, that there is a life after this one, and that we should love one another and be charitable not because we're forced to but because it's the right thing to do and it's what God wants us to do.

They instinctively know that without God, people will be open to all sorts of manipulation in order to fill the spiritual void in their lives.

They want to replace God with government that agrees with their ideology and they've largely been successful over the years, but they won't win in the end.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." - Ephesians 6:12, KJV

This turned a light on in my head. Are christians on the right like Unions are to the left? Conservative power has gone well of its way to dismantle unions because they make well organized voting blocks and activists. Churches have the same effect.

I wonder if there are political strategists thinking "man, if we could just bust up these churches the right would be much less organized" It would make complete sense to me if true.

Actually a lot of Evangelical and other Christian Church groups were left disenchanted from the George Bush administration. They used them and manipulated them to appear moral while doing nothing to advance socially
conservative causes. There are documentaries on this.

Many have abandoned politics all together.

The mayor bit off more than she could chew. Just wait, you'll see.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

(10-17-2014 06:23 PM)Libertas Wrote:  

Quote:

The drive obtained over 50,000 signatures, more than the 17,269 required to get a repeal referendum on the ballot, but Mayor Annise Parker, the first open lesbian to serve as Houston’s mayor, had made HERO a centerpiece of her administration. She and the city attorney refused to certify the petition.

Unbelievable. We have gotten to the point that government is now openly defying the law in devotion to an ideology. This is blatant, unmasked tyranny.

Back in the day, this sort of stuff would have been grounds for calling out the state militia. In the election of 1800 for example, several governors were ready to call out their state militias if there were any shenanigans (as it appeared there might be) in transferring power to Jefferson. The message was clear: a government acting contrary to the law would be overthrown, as was the right of any free people.

Same thing happened in Croatia. The initiative to get a referendum on gay marriage ban needed to get 370 000 signatures. When they submitted that many signatures, the leftist government suddenly did some reshuffling and claimed that 450 000 signatures would be needed. Fortunately, the initiative went on to gather 700 000. But that moment - the government publicly declaring itself unaccountable to people - will never be forgotten. I hope it shows in the next election results.

[tomtud]

I know some Islamic countries monitor the sermons of some preachers, imams and religious figures. But those are countries with no free speech sort of speak...the constitution in the States gives that right,,,,,times are changing folks....