By Religion News Service and BJC Staff Reports
After hearing from Christians across a theological spectrum, the mayor of Houston withdrew the city’s subpoenas of sermons from five pastors who opposed an ordinance banning discrimination against LGBT people.
The subpoenas outraged many Christians as an affront to religious freedom. The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty joined a diverse group of Baptists in sending a letter to Houston Mayor Annise Parker on October 16, reiterating the critical importance of protecting religious liberty and the separation of church and state.
The letter was signed by a wide range of Baptists, including BJC Executive Director Brent Walker, Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Suzii Paynter of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Frank Page of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Baptist General Convention of Texas leaders David Hardage, Jeff Johnson and Gus Reyes.
The letter noted that, while the signatories do not agree on everything, the principles of religious liberty are integral parts of Baptist heritage. “Our forebears — some of whom were imprisoned — petitioned for a First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty, for everyone, because we believe as Baptists that God alone is Lord of the conscience,” according to the letter.
“The U.S. Constitution protects religious freedom,” Reyes, Director of the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, said in an official statement, “and that includes the right of pastors and church members to speak on social and community issues without fear of intimidation by the government.”
On Oct. 29, Parker said that as important as it is to protect the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), the subpoenas became a distraction. They were aimed at pastors active in the movement to overturn HERO through a citywide vote.
The pastors whose sermons were subpoenaed are part of a movement that collected signatures to place HERO on the ballot, in hopes city voters would reject it. Anti-HERO efforts had at first focused on HERO’s guarantee — later dropped from a draft of the ordinance — that transgender people can use a men’s or women’s bathroom, depending on the gender with which they identify.
The five pastors — four men and one woman — are not among the activists who sued the city after it rejected thousands of signatures needed to place HERO on the ballot. They were, however, involved in the effort to secure signatures for the measure’s repeal. The subpoenas would have allowed the city’s legal team to peruse sermons from the pastors that dealt with HERO.
From the November/December 2014 Report From the Capital. Click here to read the next article.
