Golly, it’s tough being Houston mayor Annise Parker: “One word in a very long legal document which I know nothing about and would never have read,” Parker said on Thursday, “and I’m vilified coast-to-coast.”
That’s Parker’s crack defense of the subpoenas, issued to five local pastors, that demand “all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to [Houston Equal Rights Ordinance], the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession.” Among other demands: communications between the pastors and their congregants (including Facebook messages and text messages) and between the pastors and their attorneys. First Amendment protections, attorney-client privilege — Parker’s legal team has run roughshod over all sorts of rights. I laid out the story in full yesterday.
Parker conceded that “the wording was overly broad” (in related news, the Titanic’s hull was a touch flimsy), but she could not help adding, “But I also think there was some misinterpretation on the other side.”
It takes Texas-sized chutzpah to use one’s legal team to bully a group of pastors into handing over their sermons, then claim that you are the victim.
Parker is the ne plus ultra of the progressive politician: a teacup tyrant who cavalierly breaks the law and violates citizens’ rights to protect her own agenda — then, when those citizens refuse to cower before her subpoenas, insists that she is the one who’s had it rough.
Coast-to-coast vilification? Good on you, America.