LTE: Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy

Columnist Lisa Falkenberg takes upon herself an improbable task: To absolve Mayor Annise Parker of any blame for the city's attempt to violate the First Amendment rights of several Houston pastors with a subpoena of their writings that included everything but the proverbial kitchen sink.

Falkenberg starts out by accepting without hesitation Parker's claim that she had "no knowledge" of the wording of the subpoenas, and that the blame rested with unnamed "overzealous civil litigators." This is implausible because the Parker camp was disputing petition signatures submitted challenging the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance.

As Falkenberg described Feldman's findings: "Too many signatures were invalid because they didn't follow charter rules on requirements like notarization and verification."

If that is true, why would the city try to confiscate everything these pastors "prepared, delivered, revised or approved" regarding the ordinance, homosexuality, gender identity or Parker?

We must also remark on the hypocrisy of it all: Parker routinely uses pastors, church settings and religion symbolism when it suits her political purposes.

If you're going to mix religion and politics, it's unseemly to use the powers of your office to harass others for doing the same thing.

Pete Smith, Houston

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/10/190277-thought-impossible-happen-election-caught-camera/

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Regarding "Truth about sermon subpoenas not as interesting as advertised" (Sunday City & State), columnist Lisa Falkenberg takes upon herself an improbable task: To absolve Mayor Annise Parker of any blame for the City's attempt to violate the First Amendment rights of several Houston pastors with a subpoena of their writings that included everything but the proverbial kitchen sink.

 

Falkenberg starts out by accepting without hesitation the claim by Mayor Parker that she had "no knowledge" of the wording of the subpoenas, and that the blame rested with un-named "overzealous   civil litigators".  This is implausible because the Parker camp was disputing petition signatures submitted challenging HERO, stating: "too many signatures were invalid because they didn’t follow charter rules on requirements like notarization and verification."  If that is true, why would Mayor Parker try to confiscate everything  these pastors "prepared, delivered, revised or approved" regarding the HERO ordinance, homosexuality, gender identity or Mayor Parker?

 

Reasonable people might conclude that Mayor Parker had a hand in the wording, seeing as how her name was used.  They might also reasonably conclude that verbiage so specific and so perfectly suited to her political agenda is clear evidence that this was hardly the work of just a handful of legal drones churning out petitions.

 

Finally, we must once again remark on the hypocrisy of it all: Mayor Parker has routinely uses pastors, church settings and religion symbolism when it suits her political purposes.  For but one example, at her 2010 inauguration, she made a very public deal of being sworn in with her grandmother's bible, and invited mega church Pastor Joel Osteen to say nice things about her at the invocation. 

 

The point is, if you're going to mix religion and politics, it's unseemly to use the powers of your office to harass others for doing the same thing. 

 

Pete Smith

Houston, TX