Houston declares Houston Equal Rights Ordinance repeal petition invalid | abc13.com

Houston officials say the city's non-discrimination ordinance will not be put on an election ballot after they deemed the ordinance's repeal petition invalid.

Houston City Attorney Dave Feldman says the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance repeal petition failed to garner the signatures to put the ordinance to vote.

"The charter requirements are in place to ensure a fair and credible process absent of fraud," Houston City Attorney Dave Feldman said. "In this instance ... this petition filed to repeal the HERO ordinance, there are simply too many documents with irregularities and problems to overlook. The petition is simply invalid, there is no other conclusion."

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Even though the petition failed, Mayor Annise Parker says the ordinance still won't be immediately enforced.

"I fully expect ... petitioners will to head to the courthouse. I'm confident that the courts will agree with the strict interpretation of the rules set out in the charter for the requirements and that the courts will protect the integrity of our petition process," Parker said. "Since I do have expectation that there will be some legal action, I'm going to delay implementation of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, not indefinitely but certainly to allow these issues to work their way out."

Parker is right. Opponents of the ordinance are promising a legal fight.

"All we are asking is for the public to have their say," said Pastor Dave Welch, head of the Houston Area Pastors Council and a driving force behind the petitions. "Unfortunately, this administration has once again excluded people. Complete lack of integrity. Which we're not surprised either, so we're going to pursue legal remedies and we'll see what form that takes." Welch and his supporters are expected to file a lawsuit. The exact date is unclear, though it could come as early as end of the week. (**The hearing is scheduled for tomorrow August 15 according to other sources.)

Houston declares Houston Equal Rights Ordinance repeal petition invalid | abc13.com

Rafael Cruz Falsely Claims San Antonio Banned Pastors From Preaching From The Bible | Right Wing Watch

 First it was David Barton,

“The problem is, under the Nondiscrimation Ordinance that they just passed in San Antonio, if you did what JC did tonight and if you stand up for traditional marriage – marriage is a man and a woman – you are dismissed from office in San Antonio under the new city law. So JC, even though he’s elected by an overwhelming majority in San Antonio, he’s out the door. ‘You can’t do that. The people elected him.’ Yeah, but the new law in San Antonio says if you criticize homosexuality or homosexual marriage, you are dismissed from office.”

now it appears that daddy Cruz is up to the usual Tea Party smear tactics,,,

Speaking on a Tea Party Unity conference call last week, Rafael Cruz said that pastors in San Antonio can be fined for preaching from the Bible, a patently false claim but part of a larger Religious Right smear campaign against the city’s non-discrimination ordinance [PDF].

The ordinance added sexual orientation and gender identity to an existing [1994] city policy prohibiting discrimination, a move opposed by many Republicans, including Rafael Cruz’s son, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. The debate over the recently passed ordinance featured several over-the-top reactions, including a rant from a city councilwoman who called homosexuality “disgusting.”

While speaking on the call with extremist pastor and TPU founder Rick Scarborough, who introduced Ted Cruz at the 2012 Values Voter Summit, the elder Cruz claimed that pastors who preach Romans 1 — which some pastors interpret as a condemnation of homosexuality — can be fined $500 a day, a claim with no basis in reality.

I have yet to find any truth to his claim that pastors in San Antonio have or will face sanctions due to the city ordinance.  In reality, there is no known example of a city statute prohibiting that or any other Bible verse.

What I really do not understand, why should Americans listen to a Cuban Dominionist from Canada?

As for Rick Scarborough's claim that the “lesbian mayor of Houston” will impose a similar “sanctions [on pastors] if they preach the Bible;”  he too is full of shit. 

The San Antonio ordinance in no way bars pastors from preaching against homosexuality. Just as daddy Cruz's statement is false, so to is Scarborough's.   Houston Mayor Annise Parker’s proposed new Equal Rights Ordinance includes no such penalties for pastors who preach against homosexuality.

Considering the trio highlighted here, I am left to ponder yet again, why do they lie?


Rafael Cruz Falsely Claims San Antonio Banned Pastors From Preaching From The Bible | Right Wing Watch

See also:
S.A. council adds LGBT protections to city's non-discrination ordinance

Equality Defeats Fear and Hate: San Antonio Passes Nondiscrimination Ordinance

City of San Antonio Non-Discrimination Ordinance facts