Pulpit Police coming to your church?

The recent actions by the City of Houston to subpoena sermon records of churches raises the specter of Orwell’s 1984. The purpose of the subpoenas were supposedly to validate signatures obtained for a recall on the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO). For many pastors, HERO was an attempt to push a gay agenda with such stipulations as one that allowed self identified transgender persons to use men’s or women’s rest rooms. However, the subpoenas also demanded that a church produce any comments, writings etc. regarding “homosexuality or gender identity”. In reality it was a blatant attempt to intimidate pastors’ silence to shut down both freedom of speech and religion by so called “pulpit police”.

This effort is reminiscent of the federal government joining a court case against a Catholic Bishop for hate speech for his preaching against gay marriage and the Department of Defense ordering Catholic chaplains to not to read Bishop’s letters against the HHS mandate. These and other examples are reflective of government instituted religious persecution we are now seeing in our country.

I think these situations are part of the fallout from the push for gay marriage. Many say it is no big deal and that it doesn’t affect us regular folks in traditional marriages; however that has not been shown to be the case. The effort and tactics employed by supporters is affecting our freedom of speech and freedom of religion. If you think that nature and God’s law prescribes that a man and women were created separately to come together as one to procreate and provide a secure home for children and dare to state such a belief you are now in danger of being charged with “hate speech” (which has and is occurring in this country – see above examples). If your belief is strong enough that you refuse to participate in offering services for a gay wedding you will be fined and (for some already) may lose your business.

For many of us in past years the issue of homosexuality was one of a live and let live philosophy.  However, there now appears a militant gay agenda for marriage equivalency. It seems to have reached the point that to disagree is so serious a “crime” that it is deemed proper to violate non-supporter’s freedom of speech and religion through government intimidation, edict and police action.