Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) signed Senate Bill 24 Friday, which prevents the state officials from issuing subpoenas demanding that pastors hand over their sermon messages for government inspection.
Alluding to a Bible verse as he addressed a late Sunday morning service at Grace Church in The Woodlands, Texas, Abbott commended the newly passed legislation.
“Texas law now will be your strength and your sword and your shield," the Republican governor declared to the congregation, according to Townhall. "You will be shielded by any effort by any other government official in any other part of the state of Texas from having subpoenas to try to pry into what you’re doing here in your churches."
Immediately going into effect, the bill authored by Texas Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston) works to protect pastors’ religious freedom so they can freely teach from the Bible on issues that many consider to be politically incorrect.
“[The government cannot] compel the production or disclosure of a written copy or audio or video recording of a sermon delivered by a religious leader during religious worship, or compel the religious leader to testify regarding the sermon,” the newly enforced Texas law states.
Houston’s homosexual mayor Annise Parker made the law necessary a few years ago when she launched her so-called “anti-discrimination ordinance” demanding the sermons of pastors in Texas’ largest city because they delivered the biblical teaching on homosexuality as being a sin.
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The legislation became necessary after five Houston pastors were ordered to surrender their sermons in 2014 – at the demands of liberal Houston Mayor Annise Parker,” Townhall’s Cortney O’Brien reported. “
- ne of her targets, Pastor Khanh Huynh [said] earlier this year at a press conference for the introduction of the Free Speech Fairness Act. [that] Parker demanded his sermons because he and his fellow pastors were opposed to her transgender bathroom ordinance.”
Huynh saw no reason to give in to the unreasonable demands of the pro-LGBT mayor.
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We're not going to back down, because we did nothing wrong," Huynh expressed at the time. "We just speak the Word of God on moral issues, and we fight for the safety of women and girls."
https://www.onenewsnow.com/church/2017/05/25/tx-gov-signs-bill-protecting-pastors-sermons
