Yes, Houston’s Mayor Is Attacking City Pastors

Yesterday Virginia Kruta reported on the city of Houston attacking area pastors and subpoenaing sermons to check to see of those sermons included remarks on homosexuality or gender identity. A couple of people have emailed defending the move of Houston's Mayor Annise Parker, stating that it was part of the discovery process involving those pastors who filed suit against the city over the HERO ordinance. Listener Tim writes:

The City is not making a move to monitor sermons. The city is merely responding to a lawsuit against it and using standard powers of discovery in regard to a handful of pastors who are implicated as relevant to the lawsuit. The issue is here: once you file a lawsuit, you open up yourself and potentially your friends and acquaintances to discovery. This is the aspect that has not been reported, but it is an important part of the context.

This is basic court procedure. But the headlines make it sound like a surprise attack by leftists advancing their agenda on unsuspecting Christians.

True, but subpoenaing sermons of pastors not involved in the suit isn't part of discovery, it's lawfare:

But this lawsuit has provoked the city of Houston to subpoena city pastors – who reportedly have nothing to do with the lawsuit – for any sermons and communications which have ever discussed the “HERO Act,” the mayor, or sexuality and gender issues.

Also:

A group of Christians sued the city. In response, city attorneys issued subpoenas to five local pastors during the case’s discovery phase, though the five pastors were not involved in the lawsuit.

As I understand it, and my attorney friends will correct me if I'm wrong, the opposing party has to provide this information anyway as part of the process. Subpoenas are only for non parties, those not involved in the suit, so not part of discovery. So why target uninvolved pastors?

But all this presupposes that the information in the subpoenaed sermons really is substantially relevant to a case or an investigation. I don’t quite see how “all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to HERO, the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession” would be relevant to the litigation about the validity of the referendum petitions.

Exactly. Parker wants to prove a point.