Famed civil-rights attorney Alan Dershowitz says subpoenas issued by the city of Houston demanding pastors turn over sermons dealing with gays, gender identity, or the city’s first openly lesbian mayor, flagrantly violate the U.S. Constitution.
"It is so inconsistent with American law and American tradition," Dershowitz, an authority on constitutional law, said Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
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"That's what separation of church and state is all about. That's what [Thomas] Jefferson meant when he wrote the first Virginia statue separating church and state.
"That's what he meant when he and [James] Madison joined together to draft the First Amendment saying freedom of religion, the exercise of free religion has to be protected."
City officials want to see if the Sunday sermons of some pastors are opposed the city's equal rights ordinance, leading churches to charge that Mayor Annise Parker and her administration are trampling on their First Amendment rights.
Houston city attorneys issued the subpoenas in September while opponents of the city's equal rights ordinance were trying to force a repeal referendum,
according to the Houston Chronicle.
Those opponents are now challenging city attorney David Feldman's ruling that the group did not gather enough valid signatures to place the repeal referendum on the ballot.
The subpoena was partof the case's discovery phase and it asked for "all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to (Houston Equal Rights Ordinance), the Petition … Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession."
The subpoena was issued to several high profile pastors and religious leaders who have been opposing the ordinance.
Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor and Newsmax contributor, said ministers are not exempt from having their behavior examined if it's "directly criminal or if he's inciting somebody to go and commit an act of terrorism."
"I don't think anybody is suggesting that that's what's happening here. What it's suggesting is that the minister may have been organizing opposition to some law referendum that would be pro-gay and the ministers were anti-gay," he said.
"I'm very much pro-gay rights and pro-gay marriage, but I'm not going to start going after ministers … We have to err on the side of permitting free speech.
"You don't go after the minister for preaching the gospel in a way that you disagree with."
Dershowitz is author of the new book,
"Terror Tunnels: The Case for Israel's Just War Against Hamas."
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