Big Gay Brother?

The lesbian mayor of Houston subpoenaed pastors to turn over any sermons critical of her or gays.

http://www.examiner.com/article/hou...mons-roils-civil-rights-ordinance-controversy

Now a disclaimer....I think those who oppose gays as some religious moral abomination are narrow-minded idiots. Hell, anyone who decides anything based on their religious beliefs is a fucking idiot. But the mayor pulling this kind of shit is wrong. Putting aside the obvious invasion of rights, what it also does is lend more fire to the perception that liberals don't want equality, they just want to squash anyone who doesn't agree with them.

You have to change the minds of these idiots with reasonable discourse and it will take years to win them over. Pulling this kind of shit just rallies them even more and sets you back.

Yeah, that's bullshit.

Incidentally, I disagree with this bit:

....but that doesn't really change the issue at hand.

Ummm... "no u"?

To be fair if this church is using the pulpit for political purposes then it should lose its tax exempt status.

Let me clarify. Stuff like hating gays, not believing in evolution, thinking the Earth is only 4,000 years old...etc....

4,000??!?!?! That's preposterous.

It's 6,000.

Give or take a few decades.

Christianity is an "all in" proposition. Picking and choosing is not an option.

So, there I stand.

This kind of thing makes me want to get mad at you on behalf of the people who wrote your sacred texts, who, albeit religious where I am not, were much smarter than that and never expected you to refuse factual information just because some larger point was made with a disagreeing metaphor 2,500 years ago.

Many churches are coming to the realization that taxes are being used to blackmail them, not free them.

A church that will be silent because of money isn't a church I want to be a part of.

RP is completely wrong. No church is owed a tax exempt status and if they.violate the terms of being a nonprofit then they should lose their tax exempt status.

Poodle is always wrong. Even when he occasionally says something right, he's still wrong.

Funny that the carpet-munching mayor only targeted conservative Christian clergy for her intimidation campaign. I wonder why she didn't include any Muzzie imams? Could it be that if she did, a fatwa would ensue and there'd be a dead dyke mayor of Houston?

Because Muslim imams are the ones telling thier congregations to protest against gay rights, for one.

I just got a text from your nearest bridge--it needs its troll back.

Any religious organization that imposes a political view on its congregation as a matter of faith and salvation is no longer a purely religious organization and ought to have its nonprofit status reviewed.

And here we have garamet making the incredible argument that religious beliefs should be taxed.

Dream on sweetheart.

No, it's the argument that groups practicing political activism should all be held to the same set of nonprofit guidelines, whether they're religious or not.

As much as I'm loathe to agree with the shrieking batshit crazy author, she is 100% correct.

It's one thing to interpret the bible as saying homosexuality is a sin. It's quite another for a preacher, pastor or priest to use the pulpit to tell their congregation how to vote and which candidates or plebiscites to support.

A pastor preaching the Word of God that homosexual relations are a sin and that Bible-believing Christians should vote for officials that will uphold Christain values isn't "political activism." Every election cycle the libtards try to push the "revoke tax-exempt status" intimidation strategy, and every year they're told to fuck off.

I agree, muzzie imams are telling fellow muzzies that gay "rights" are wrong, and the penalties in Muzzie countries for ghey sechs is usually slow torture and death. So why isn't the Houston dyke mayor targeting the local mosque dwellers?

Nope. The minute they do that they've crossed into political activism. Or do they think their congregation is so dumb they can't figure it out for themselves?

And I'm not just taking shots at religion. There are a lot of left-wing charitable and environmental groups that should have their tax-exempt status revoked because they stray into the political arena. Fuck 'em all.

Wow, and the best part is you're completely oblivious to how weak this makes you look.

So are you saying the mayor is justified in her subpoena of the sermons in order to question their tax exempt status?

Wrong. A general exhortation to vote for those who share your values and will govern their office based on those values is not "political activism." If your using the pulpit to stump for a specific candidate, then yes, the issue becomes more thorny.

So you'd be okay with any and all exhortations to vote for a particular party.

On the contrary, I think she went about this the wrong way. A suggestion that their nonprofit status might be up for review would have been more subtle.

Of course, they'd still be yowling "Persecution!!!" Warmup for the War on Christmas, no doubt.

So what you're saying is that their non-profit status is okay as long as their sermons don't conflict with the mayor's opinions.

I'm saying politics doesn't belong in church.

If the question is did the pastor break the law, and thus put his nonprofit status at risk, by engaging in political activism or telling his congragation how to vote from the pulpit...

Then,yes, reviewing official transcripts does seem like a reasonable thing to do as it would directly prove guilt or innocence.

What's your stance on divorce, given that the New Testament seems to say that the only situations recognised by God as counting as divorce worthy are adultery or rejection by an un-believer?

At first I thought this thread was about Big Brother:Gay Edition.

"Tooay"?

According to Snopes, the story is a mix of true and false.

TL;DR - Apparently, the city passed the HERO bill, and a group of Christian activists got together to petition for repeal. They submitted 50,000 signatures, but there was some kind of issue where procedures weren't followed, and a significant portion of the signatures were invalid, resulting in the petition not meeting the threshold. So the group called in a larger group, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal organization. The city then subpoenaed the sermons of the pastors involved in the petition, due to the potential for pastors having informed their congregations on how they were supposed to vote, and whether the signatures collected were done so within the legal requirements of the petition request.

So, for the moment, it seems everything she is doing is perfectly legal, and is not stifling first amendment rights. Whether that is the true motive or not, I can't say because I'm not certain, but I can say the Examiner article made a number of assumptions that had no basis in fact.