Written by Don Byrd
October 19 update: Mayor amends controversial subpoenas
October 30 update: Mayor abandons controversial subpoenas
ORIGINAL POST:
Earlier today, the Baptist Joint Committee’s Executive Director Brent Walker joined leaders from a diverse group of Baptist organizations in a letter to Houston Mayor Annise Parker. The City of Houston, you may have heard, subpoenaed the sermons of several area pastors, in search of evidence in a lawsuit over the effort to repeal an anti-discrimination measure.
Walker and other Baptist leaders, including SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission President Russell Moore, Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee President Frank Page, and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Executive Coordinator Suzii Paynter, urged the Mayor to acknowledge the error of such a blatant government intrusion into protected religious activity.
From the letter:
We disagree on many things, but, as Baptists, we have a long history of support for religious liberty and separation of church and state. On that, we stand united. Our ancestors stood in the colonial and revolutionary eras demanding the disestablishment of state churches, the end to state licensing of preachers, and the cessation of penalties for religious dissenters. . . .
Whatever a church or synagogue or mosque or any other religious body believes about marriage or sexuality, the preaching and teaching of those bodies should be outside the scope of government intimidation or oversight.
The Mayor has indicated attorneys will “narrow the scope” of the subpoenas following the outcry. But the letter from Walker and others is correct: a slow walk-back is not enough here. A message should clearly be sent that the subpoenas were out of bounds, a mistake that will not be repeated.
You can read the BJC’s press release regarding the letter here.
