City Ordinance: Austin Churches Must Hire Homosexual, Transexual Pastors [ChristianActionNetwork]

City Ordinance: Austin Churches Must Hire Homosexual, Transexual Pastors


The "Houston Equal Rights Ordinance" (HERO) battle lasted a year in which the city was taken to court and the lengthy arguments resulted in an order for a city-wide referendum in November 2015. The measure was rejected by a 61- to 39-percent vote, killing the ordinance. (Pat Sullivan/AP photo)


After Houston rejected similar measures three years ago, churches in Austin may be forced to hire homosexual and transgender pastors and ministers due to a city ordinance.

Ground zero in the turmoil because of non-discrimination reforms that fail to protect religious and moral objections to sinful lifestyles has shifted to Austin.

The city’s leaders passed an employment discrimination ordinance much like 2015’s “HERO” measure in Houston, prohibiting decisions against hiring based on sexual orientation and gender identity in addition to other reasons.

The ordinance provides no limit to enforcement against churches that decide against hiring of homosexuals and transsexuals on moral and religious grounds.

Not even pastoral and other leadership positions at churches are excluded from possible city oversight and regulatory management in the capital of Texas.

Dozens of Texas churches that are members of the U.S. Pastor Council (USPC) are represented by a federal lawsuit filed earlier this month, following the Houston pattern of possibly a long battle in the courts.

Your next church pastor? In Austin, a city ordinance would force non-discrimination on the basis of homosexuality and transgender beliefs if the prospective hire claims to be a member of the church’s denomination. (Yahoo News photo)

“Every church in Austin that refuses to hire practicing homosexuals as clergy or church employees is violating city law and subject to civil penalties and liability,” the filing, U.S. Pastor Council v. Austin, reads.

“The City of Austin’s failure to exempt church hiring decisions . . . violates the U.S. Constitution, the Texas Constitution and the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”

In Houston, a tough legal struggle ended in the ordinance being placed on a ballot for a referendum vote noted as the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance or HERO.

“Houston is ground zero on this,” Steven Hotze of Conservative Republicans of Texas said in the weeks leading up to the vote.

“If Houston falls and Texas falls to the homosexual political movement on this issue, the country is gone.”


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I have stopped understanding America. I presume the same legislation would place the same requirements on both the Roman Catholic Church and on the Islamic community, neither of who are likely to respond well to it, for any number of reasons, good or ill.

The relationship between Church and State has been complex through the whole life of the Church. This clearly came to the fore in the period of the Diocletian Persecution, and as we discussed elsewhere in the reign of Constantine and those who cam after. It was also underlined in the Carolingian Dynasty, and at the reformation. The matter of the established and the disestablished church also underlined the issue.

Loren Mead identified the greatest influence on a person after their family was the community of faith in which they find meaning. None of us are going to allow the state to re-write the scriptures, and there is clearly a need on the part of any jurisdiction in dealing with communities of faith to recognise where the lines are. On the one hand I would support the state prohibiting violence in the name of religion, on the other hand I think these communities of faith need to be free to identify the leadership of those groups without undue interference from the state.

I suspect such laws in Australia would be found wanting by the High Court as ultra vires in terms of the Constitution. I would have imagined the same might be true in the USA.

 

Botolph, the US is so divided by class and vocation. The large urban areas, such as Austin, are out of touch with the heartland of the country. Austin is notorious as a 'progressive' city. It's laws are often a knee-jerk reaction meant to alienate the opposite position.

Also, the city does not super-cede the State in US law, so this will likely be challenged in court for the next 8-10 years. And that is the way it goes: progressives move unilaterally with the anticipation that popular opinion will have transitioned to their action before the matter has passed through the glacial judicial process.