Message #57438

[Psalm 51:17]

http://www.wnd.com/2015/04/houston-pastors-ratchet-up-fight-over-transgender-rights/
4/30/15
HOUSTON PASTORS RATCHET UP FIGHT OVER 'TRANSGENDER RIGHTS'
Ordinance war grabbed headlines when lesbian mayor subpoenaed sermons

A lawsuit against a Houston transgender-rights ordinance that grabbed national headlines when the lesbian mayor, Annise Parker, subpoenaed the sermons of area pastors is being escalated to the state Court of Appeals.

The pastors, announcing they have filed an appeal Thursday, released a statement.

“After ten months, thousands of man hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs for the coalition, Judge Robert Schaffer caved in to political pressure by the LGBT political force who endorsed him and ruled that we were a few hundred signatures short,” they said.

“His subjective determination that a group of circulators’ signatures were not legible – a standard that does not exist in Texas election law and violates the federal Voting Rights Act – invalidated over 5,000 signatures, nearly 10 times the number needed to erase even his declared shortfall. We are confident that his decision will be overturned on that basis alone at the state Court of Appeals,” the statement said.

When the City Council adopted the ordinance, the coalition immediately collected signatures to put the decision before the voters, but the city fought back and disqualified signatures, so the pastors’ group filed the legal challenge.

“The resolve of our pastors and leaders has not wavered and we intend to right a voting rights wrong. We will take this to the Texas Supreme Court if needed to assure that the rule of law is restored in Houston, voters have our day at the ballot and to protect basic, God-given rights of the citizens in the fourth largest city in America,” the pastors said.

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