Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed legislation recently that prohibits Texas government agencies from demanding to see the sermons of religious leaders.
Governor Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick signed the bill surrounded by Houston area clergy during a worship service at Grace Church in Woodlands, Texas.
Four of the five Houston pastors whose sermons became the target of a sweeping 2014 subpoena “fishing expedition” by City of Houston attorneys and then-Mayor Annise Parker joined the signing ceremony. In messages emphasizing spiritual and political courage, Abbott and Patrick also spoke of their Christian faith before signing the legislation that gives pastors protection from future incursions by the government into Texas houses of worship.
Steve Riggle, one of the subpoenaed pastors said, “We’re grateful for the bill. We never thought we’d need that, but this is a crazy day. We never thought we’d have to define ‘men’ and ‘women’ either but here we are.”
Whether or not men who identified as women could use women’s public restrooms, locker rooms and showers — and vice versa — became the key issue during the 2014 fight to repeal the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance. A diverse contingent of Houston pastors rallied their congregations, unsuccessfully, to fight passage of the ordinance that gave protected class status to gays, lesbians and transgender persons, including access to public restrooms according to gender identity, not biological sex. In the process their sermons were subpoenaed. They refused to relinquish them.