Houston mayor withdrews sermon subpoenas

A partial victory for free speech: The lesbian mayor of Houston has withdrawn the subpoenas her administration had issued demanding that conservative pastors turn over to the government any sermons or communications which had discussed politics.

I call this a partial victory because the mayor, Annise Parker, is still in office, and was still unapologetic about the subpoenas.

“The goal of the subpoenas is to defend against the lawsuit and not to provoke a public debate,” Parker said. She is ordering the subpoenas removed for the sake of Houston, not because the request were in any way illegal or intended to intrude on religious liberties, Parker said. “I didn’t do this to satisfy them,” Parker said of critics. “I did it because it was not serving Houston.”

She still thinks it was perfectly okay to make this demand against her opponents. Such a person should never be allowed the power of any political office, including dog-catcher.

Send your sermons to Houston

This is good: Mike Huckabee on Saturday suggested that every pastor in America send their sermons to the mayor of Houston.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said pastors from across the United States should send “thousands and thousands” of Bibles and sermons to the Houston mayor who demanded pastors turn over their sermons to the government due to their objection to an LGBT discrimination city ordinance.”I hope she gets thousands and thousands of sermons and Bibles,” Huckabee said on his Fox News show Saturday, referring to Mayor Annise D. Parker.”It ought to make you mad that the mayor thinks she can turn in her pastors. And so I got an idea,” Huckabee explained. “If she wants a sermon, here is my suggestion. I would like to ask every pastor in America, not only the ones in Houston, to send her your sermons and go ahead. Obviously she could use a few. And everybody watching the show ought to send her a Bible.”

As always, the best answer to bad speech is more speech!