by arnierosner

Think it’s hot in Texas these days? Just wait a few weeks, until the San Antonio City Council ends its summer hiatus and resumes work on a proposed change to its nondiscrimination ordinances that apparently will discriminate against all who take the Bible at its word and follow it.

That’s because the change creates a penalty for those who ever exhibit a “bias,” which clearly could include adopting the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality, with a permanent ban on participation in city government, business or employment.

Opponents of the plan, which would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the nondiscrimination ordinances, charge it is a violation of constitutional Article VI, paragraph 3, which states, “[N]o religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

The opponents explain that the ordinance would bar anyone from office who has “demonstrated a bias” against someone based on categories that include “sexual orientation.”

The proposal, however, does not define “bias,” which, according to local church leaders, could mean someone who declares homosexual behavior is sinful.

The new ordinance would state: “No person shall be appointed to a position if the city council finds that such person has, prior to such proposed appointment, engaged in discrimination or demonstrated a bias, by word or deed, against any person, group or organization on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, age, or disability.”

Anyone in office who demonstrates a bias would be considered guilty of “malfeasance” and removed from office.

Church leaders who oppose the proposed change argue it violates First Amendment rights to freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of association.

It also violates, they say, the Texas Religious Freedom Act and the Texas Constitution.

Pastor Charles Flowers of Faith Outreach International, who has been alerting city residents about the issue, told OneNewsNow that the reference to “bias” could mean anything.

“The ordinance … says that if you have at any point demonstrate a bias – without defining what a bias is or who will determine whether or not one has been exercised – that you cannot get a city contract,” Flowers said. “Neither can any of your subcontractors [who have demonstrated a bias] sign on to the contract.”
He called the measure “unprecedentedly wrong” and said “the citizens of San Antonio must stop it.”

Many pastors are concerned, reported KHOU-TV’s Joe Conger in Houston.

“Ever have a Paula Deen moment – make an off-color joke or hold a religious belief?” Conger said. “[Pastor Steve] Branson [of Village Parkway Baptist Church] says keep it to yourself if you’re involved with San Antonio city government. Proposed changes to the anti-discrimination ordinance could get you fired.”
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“If you voice any opinion, no matter how many years back it’s been, it can be used against you,” Branson told the station. “City employees are going to be greatly affected by this.”

The KHOU report said more than a dozen church leaders met to discuss the looming issue.

An analysis released by pastors said the “ordinance violates Texas and federal Constitutions by creating a religious test for involvement in city government.”
The church leaders said it allows the city council “to prohibit those that speak their religious beliefs regarding homosexuality from serving on city boards.”

“For example, if a person publicly expresses their religious belief that homosexual behavior is a sin – even if this expression is at a church service – that person could be frozen out of involvement with city government.”

The analysis also contends businesses “run by people of faith will be subject to criminal penalties if they refuse to provide services that conflict with their religious beliefs relating to homosexuality.”

The council, which declined to advance the plan when it first was discussed, is scheduled to resume talks on the controversy in August.

by William L. Anderson
lewrockwell.com

As a somewhat casual observer of George Zimmerman’s show trial, I was surprised that it ended with a “not guilty” verdict, given how the politics of race had so infected the entire saga from beginning to the announcement of the jury’s decision. After all, not only was Zimmerman indicted on charges that assumed he had intentionally pursued Trayvon Martin with personal ill will and animosity with his being in that supposed frame of mind when he shot the teenager, but the very President of the United States already had effectively declared Zimmerman guilty of a racially-motivated murder.

There will be no shortfall of commentary on the verdict and the outlandish media coverage (which declared Zimmerman to be a “white Hispanic” in hopes that the racial angle in the case could be most fully exploited), I would like to deal with another perspective with which I am more familiar, that being the prosecutorial abuse that helped drive this case. The politics of race, while front-and-center, did drive the push for criminal charges, but so did electoral politics, and specifically electoral politics that have defined the recent career of Special Prosecutor Angela Corey.

At this point, let me say that even after the trial has ended, I am not sure what happened, but it also was clear that the State of Florida did not meet the legal burden of proof needed for a conviction. That is important to remember, because President Obama, Al Sharpton, and any number of commentators openly are declaring that when there is a high-profile action involving race and a trial, the law should be bypassed and mob rule installed. Make no mistake; Obama, Sharpton, and the New York Times were declaring their belief that the jury should have ignored legal standards of proof in exchange for a verdict that the NYT declared would have been an “emotional catharsis.”

The NYT and most news outlets had refused to note that the gated community where Zimmerman lived had been hit hard with numerous burglaries, thefts, and break-ins in recent months. While the NAACP already has publicly declared Zimmerman a racist because he had made a number of calls before when on neighborhood watch, both blacks and whites who lived there were adamant in their statements about the problems of crime:

One black neighbor of George Zimmerman said the neighborhood’s recent history should be taken into account.

“Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. I’m black, OK?” the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. “There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood,” she said. “That’s why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin.”

Understand that this information was easily available to any journalist who was interested in finding out some fact, but in retrospect, most mainstream journalists and pundits had no interest in going outside of their narrow narratives of race.

Early on, the media from CNN to the New York Times to NBC News (and especially its sister network, MSNBC) falsely claimed that the Hispanic Zimmerman was “white,” and that he killed Martin for “racial reasons.” There was no proof, but that didn’t matter as journalists simply declared what they wanted to say.

Perhaps the lowest point of what was a very low standard for media coverage came when NBC News literally spliced together quotes from Zimmerman on a 911 call in order to make it look as though Zimmerman was racially profiling Martin. NBC reported the conversation between Zimmerman and the 911 dispatcher as follows:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black. This actually is what transpired during the call:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

The contrast is obvious, as NBC deliberately tried to make the conversation something that it wasn’t for the purpose of painting Zimmerman as a homicidal racist. (The NBC brass first insisted that the network had done no wrong, but later quietly fired some people as even by the abysmal standards to which mainstream journalists adhere this was over the top.)

However, the mainstream journalists hardly were finished completing their self-appointed tasks of trying to railroad Zimmerman to prison. About the time NBC News was busy splicing together Zimmerman’s comments, CNN solemnly broadcast that Zimmerman had called Martin a “f*cking coon.” The left-wing Daily Kos picked it up, as did other news outlets. Two weeks later, CNN finally admitted that he was saying, “f*cking cold,” but not before legal analysts all over the country were declaring that the statement “proved” Zimmerman was targeting and intending to kill black people.

Not to be outdone by its competitors, ABC News declared to its viewers that Zimmerman had “no injuries” from his encounter with Martin. Finally, President Barack Obama himself weighed in, essentially claiming that Zimmerman was a racist murderer who needed to be prosecuted. (He and his attorney general Eric Holder – the same Eric Holder who was in charge of covering up the federal murders at Waco in 1993 – would look into pursuing federal charges against Zimmerman, something the journalists applauded. (Obama made more inflammatory statements at a press conference the afternoon after the announcement of the verdict.)

There was another reason other than sheer dishonesty and the desire to railroad a man into prison that led ABC to cover up the fact that Zimmerman, indeed, had received some injuries during that fateful encounter. It turns out that Corey herself had withheld photographs and other evidence that Martin had injured Zimmerman before gaining the indictment, an action that has enraged the famed defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, who publicly criticized her.

As I noted at the beginning of this article, I do not know what happened in that encounter, other than Trayvon Martin was shot dead. At some point, Martin and Zimmerman tangled and it looks as though Zimmerman was getting the worst of it, which led to the shooting. What I do know, however, is that Corey’s people did not come close to presenting evidence that matched their rhetoric and the poisonous rhetoric that American politicians and journalists have been spewing.

The trial of George Zimmerman was a show trial, but somewhere along the line, the six female jurors did not adhere to their pre-written script. However, that will not stop those in power and those who supposedly make a living as journalists from making ludicrous claims that Trayvon Martin was the Second Coming of Emmett Till and that Zimmerman was guilty of second-degree murder because Al Sharpton said so. That is the sorry state of current “justice” in the United States and it will only become worse.