Mayor Annise Parker and Sermons

Mayor Annise Parker and Sermons 

The Gist

Annise Parker, mayor of Houston and the first openly gay person to lead a major American city, has been in the national spotlight as of late. This past May, the city of Houston passed the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, pregnancy and genetic information, and family, marital or military status. Conservative groups in Houston then launched a petition drive that would put a repeal of the ordinance on the November ballot. They were able to obtain close to 50,000 signatures, but the City of Houston threw them out because the majority of the signatures were found to be defective. The City was then sued, with parties arguing that they were unaware of the rules pertaining to obtaining signatures.  As part of a routine discovery request, lawyers for the city asked for sermons that mentioned the following: the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity. The point was to see what, if anything, the pastors told their parishioners about how to obtain signatures and what the city rules were on obtaining these signatures (since the argument on the other side was that they didn’t actually know the rules).  Although broad discovery requests are the norm in any litigation, Mayor Parker (who was not told of the subpoenas until after they were sent) conceded that they may have asked for too much. The subpoenas have since been narrowed to simply communications on the HERO petition process….and now you know the gist.