Houston Mayor Annise Parker has withdrawn subpoenas aimed at five local pastors after a national firestorm during which she was accused of anti-religious intimidation and abuse of power. Ms. Parker said at a recent press conference that removing the subpoenas lets the city avoid “a squabble over freedom of religion” in the legal battle over its recently enacted gender-neutral bathroom bill. “I didn’t do this to satisfy them,” Ms. Parker said of her critics in the Houston Chronicle. “I did it because it was not serving Houston.”

The City of Houston crossed First Amendment lines by demanding that certain pastors submit any planned sermons that deal with homosexuality, gender identity or anything that has to do with the city’s openly lesbian mayor, Annise Parker.  Ministers who failed to comply with the edict were to be held in contempt of court.  “The city’s subpoena of sermons and other pastoral communications is both needless and unprecedented,” said Christina Holcomb, an attorney from the Alliance Defending Freedom at the time. “The city council and its attorneys are engaging in an inquisition designed to stifle any critique of its actions.  Political and social commentary is not a crime.  It is protected by the First Amendment.”

The ADF is a nationally known law firm that specializes in religious liberty cases.  They are representing the five Houston pastors and have filed a motion is Harris County court to stop the subpoenas maintaining that they are “overbroad, unduly burdensome, harassing and vexatious.”

According to the Houston Chronicle, opponents of the ordinance have launched a petition drive has acquired more than 50,000 signatures, far exceeding the 17, 269 needed to place a referendum on the ballot.  The city then countered this measure by throwing out the petition over alleged irregularities.

The subpoenas were the latest round in an ongoing battle over Houston’s new non-discrimination ordinance which allows, among other things, men to use the ladies room and vice versa.  This law was approved back in June and the opponents of the “bathroom bill” as it has been called, filed a lawsuit against the bill.  The city has now countered with the subpoenas requiring the submission of sermons to the mayor’s office.

While the asexual bathroom idea might lead to some fun times for the Houston nightlife, it’s also sure to provoke a whole bunch of uncomfortable questions from the kids out for Sunday breakfast with their families after church including a few that Mom and Dad weren’t planning on having to answer just yet.

While the pastors who were subpoenaed were not part of the lawsuit, they were part of a coalition of over four hundred Houston area churches that opposed the ordinance.  The coalition is made up of churches from a number of faith groups from Southern Baptist to Non-Denominational.

Mayor Parker would not explain why she wanted to inspect the sermons and the mayor’s Director of Communications has stated flatly that, “We don’t com-ment on litigations’.”

ADF attorney Erik Stanley stated at the time that “City council members are supposed to be public servants, not ‘Big Brother’ overlords who will tolerate no dissent or challenge.  This (the subpoenas) is designed to intimidate pastors.”  Stanley suspects that the mayor wants to publicly embarrass the ministers and has said that he anticipates the city will hold up the sermons for public scrutiny in an effort to “out” the pastors as anti-gay bigots.

After the mayor withdrew the subpoenas, Stanley said in a statement that she “had no choice but to withdraw these subpoenas, which should never have been served in the first place.”

“The entire nation — voices from every point of the spectrum left to right — recognized the city’s action as a gross abuse of power,” he continued. “We are gratified that the First Amendment rights of the pastors have triumphed over government overreach and intimidation. The First Amendment protects the right of pastors to be free from government intimidation and coercion of this sort.”

When the subpoenas were issued the pastors said immediately that they would not comply with them which meant that they were at risk for a fine or confinement or both.  There’s little question that the mayor tried to draw a line in the sand over this one or maybe drawing is not the right word.  In any case the pastors not only refused to go to the bathroom with the opposite sex, they stated that they were willing to go to jail before they allowed an editor on the pulpit

Rev. Dave Welch, executive director of the Texas Pastor Council was among those who was served a subpoena.  He accused the city of violating the law with the subpoenas and vowed to stand firm in the faith. “We’re not going to yield our First Amendment Rights.  This is absolutely a complete abuse of authority.”

Welch said he will not be intimidated by the mayor.  “We’re not afraid of this bully.  We’re not intimidated at all.”

Steve Riggle, the senior pastor of Grace Community Church, also received a subpoena.  “This is an attempt to chill pastors from speaking to the cultural issues of the day,” Riggle stated. “The mayor would like to silence our voice.  She is a bully.”

Tony Perkins, Director of the Family Research Council, called the actions by Houston’s mayor “obscene” and said “they should not be tolerated.  This is a shot across the bow of the church.”

Perkins said pastors around the nation should support the Houston ministers.  “The state is breaching the wall of separation between church and state.  Pastors need to step forward and challenge this across the country.  I’d like to see literally thousands of pastors, after they read this story, begin to challenge government authorities – to dare them to come into their churches and demand their sermons.”

In any event, I’m afraid this is only a sign of worst times to come.  The line between Church and State is not only blurring across the country—in some places it’s being erased.

Ms. Parker, who is openly gay, said she made the decision to pull the subpoenas outright after meeting with members of the local and national clergy. “The goal of the subpoenas was to defend against a lawsuit, and not to provoke a public debate,” Ms. Parker said in the Chronicle. “I don’t want to have a national debate about freedom of religion when my whole purpose is to defend a strong and wonderful and appropriate city ordinance against local attack, and by taking this step today we remove that discussion about freedom of religion.”

“While we are encouraged by this evidence that the Mayor is responding to pressure and withdrawing her unconstitutional subpoenas, this is about far more than subpoenas,” said a statement by Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “As we have stated since the beginning of this intrusion into the private affairs of Houston churches; this is not about subpoenas, this is not about sermons, it is not even about biblical teaching on sexual immorality, it is about political intimidation and the bullying by Mayor Parker that continues.”

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James Riordan is the author of thirty-three books, including The Coming of the Walrus, The Bishop of Rwanda and Break on Through : The Life & Death of Jim Morrison which was made into the movie, The Doors by Oliver Stone.  Riordan also wrote Stone’s biography.  He has won nine national awards and was nominated for a Chicago Area Emmy for television writing.  He has also written several screenplays and is widely recognized for his ministry work with teenagers.