Thread: Another Democrat assumes dictatorial powers: HOUSTON MAYOR INSTITUTING 'MOB RULE'

Another Democrat assumes dictatorial powers

It's no secret Obama lacks authority to make changes willy-nilly to the Affordable Care Act to suit his whims. Changes to the laws of the land are reserved to Congress.

Now, another Democrat has decided her re-election gives her Obama-like powers to flaunt the law and make taxpayers pay for it.

Here's the latest example of the collapse of constitutional law ...

WND EXCLUSIVE

HOUSTON MAYOR ACCUSED OF INSTITUTING 'MOB RULE'

'Dangerous' for elected officials to 'go around picking whatever laws they want to follow'

Published: 2 hours ago JOHN GRIFFING

Houston Mayor Annise Parker is being accused of instituting “mob rule” after imposing a policy that will pay benefits to same-sex couples who have been legally married.
Jared Woodfill, chairman of the local Harris County Republican Party, has signed on to a lawsuit in response, charging the mayor “unilaterally disposed of the Houston City Charter and the Texas Constitution without anything even resembling democratic process.”
Parker announced Nov. 20 that the new policy will offer health and life insurance benefits to all spouses of legally married employees, including same-sex couples.
A voter-approved charter amendment in 2001, however, banned benefits to same-sex couples.
Parker has lived in a lesbian relationship with Kathy Hubbard for 24 years but will remain ineligible for benefits because she is not legally married, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Woodfill asked: “If that is what Mayor Parker thinks of law and order, how can she effectively serve as the chief executive officer of a large municipality, whose first duty is to ensure law and order?”
He said that if the city loses “the rule of law, we give into to mob rule and crony politics, aptly described once as the ‘Chicago way.’”
“Texas and Houston will not permit would-be anarchy to become the default standard of government in this city,” he said.

Equal protection?
Parker based her decision on the right to equal protection in the U.S. Constitution.
According to that right, she argued, it’s “unconstitutional for the city to continue to deny benefits to the same-sex spouses of our employees who are legally married.”
“This change is not only the legal thing to do, it is the right, just and fair thing to do,” she said.
The city’s 2001 charter amendment, however, states: “Except as required by state or federal law, the city of Houston shall not provide employment benefits, including health care, to persons other than employees, their legal spouses and dependent children.”
Parker believes the language applies to any and all marriages even if not recognized in every state. Texas statutes still reflect the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) ethos of “one man and one woman.” Same-sex marriages conducted in any jurisdiction where the act is legal, including foreign countries and 17 states, will be recognized, Parker declared.
Parker’s “equality” argument, however, apparently does not accommodate polygamous marriages, which are recognized in some parts of the world.
“The amendment specifically permits benefits to be provided to legal spouses of employees,” Parker said. “I can only assume that it was contemplated that there would never be a time when same-sex couples were in legally sanctioned relationships.”
Parker said the Texas Defense of Marriage Act can be ignored because the U.S. Constitution supersedes any state law.

Not the mayor’s job?
Woodfill argued that for case law to be applied at the local level, “test cases are often necessary, but these should come from citizens petitioning for a lack of constitutional protection or for perceived inequality, not the mayor of the third largest city in the U.S. blatantly and brazenly violating the laws passed by the people’s duly elected representatives in Texas and at the federal level.”
Dave Welch, president of the U.S. Pastor’s Council, also has signed on to the lawsuit against Parker’s policy.
“Mayor Parker has again shown that those who reject the existence of a moral law undergirding civil law have no reservations about running roughshod over such mundane items as state constitutions, city charters and the basic rule of law,” Welch said.
He said Parker’s “unilateral act of recognizing same-sex marriages from other states and extending employee benefits to those ‘spouses’ follows the same path of anarchy as her good friend Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco who likewise defied state law.”
“Her re-election is not a mandate for monarchy nor anarchy, so she can rest assured the pastors of the city will take this all the way to the state Supreme Court and beyond if needed to force her to obey the laws of man even if she denies the laws of God,” he said.
Jonathan Saenz, president and attorney for the non-profit advocacy group Texas Values, told WND it’s “outrageous that Mayor Parker and the city of Houston think they have the authority to rewrite the Texas Constitution on marriage and blatantly ignore their citizen-approved city charter.”
“Mayor Parker’s self-serving efforts to force city staff to willfully violate the Texas Constitution is one of the most dangerous and egregious forms of a Washington-style power grab I have ever seen,” Saenz said. “She’s practically telling Gov. Perry, Attorney General Abbott and the people of Texas to ‘Come and Take It.’”
Saenz said he believed Parker was instituting a form of “mob rule.”
“I’m not aware of any precedent that gives the mayor the authority to do what she did on this issue. Houston is a political subdivision of the state of Texas and is in violation of the state law and state constitutions,” he said.
Saenz said the mayor’s move “shows that she clearly does not respect the rule of law, and she clearly does not respect the people of the state of Texas who went to the ballot to vote on a constitutional amendment for the definition of marriage.”
“That’s a dangerous place for elected officials to think that they can go around picking whatever laws they want to follow and whatever laws they want to violate. It’s as if they are a law unto themselves,” he said.
The city of Houston already has established a reputation for making it difficult for Christian pastors to express their message, with tickets being issued for over the thickness of signs.


http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/houston-m...ting-mob-rule/

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http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/houston-m...ting-mob-rule/

Blue state has moxy to mock God

"Judaism is just myth and superstition that bewitches believers and damns souls."

Could you imagine officials at a state capitol allowing such a provocative slur to be posted under the rotunda in the name of protected free speech?

Of course not -- it's something they would NEVER permit.

But they are allowing THIS ... and Christians are calling foul!

WND EXCLUSIVE

BLUE STATE HAS MOXY TO MOCK GOD

'Their argument is that this is somehow free speech'

Published: 3 hours ago


A former candidate for comptroller in Illinois who made headlines by turning backwards a pro-atheism sign in the state capitol is continuing his fight against what he calls “hate speech” against Christianity.
William J. Kelly got into trouble in 2009 when he turned around a sign that said: “There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is just a myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”
He called the sign, posted by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, hate speech because it attacks the faith of others.
He’s reviving his effort against what he calls the government’s lack of neutrality in a statement about the sign, which is being posted again at the Springfield, Ill., capitol building and elsewhere across the nation.
He points out that the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution requires accommodation for religion and forbids “hostility,” which is what he says the anti-religion posting represents.
“What they’re actually doing, in my opinion, is hate speech against Christianity,” he told WND. “There’s this argument that this is somehow free speech. That would not hold up if I somehow engaged in some variation … bashing other religions.’
He said it is faith that has made America great, and the Constitution provides for recognition of that.
“This type of hate speech is wrong,” he said.
It is ominous, he said, that the city of Chicago has allowed the display of large “A” to represent atheism at Daley Plaza, the city’s traditional Christmas center.
When he took on the display in the Springfield rotunda in 2009, he was detained by security and then removed from the building.
Kelly contends the sign represents a violation of the constitutional requirement that religion be accommodated not just tolerated.
At the time of the 2009 dispute, a blogger noted: “The Freedom from Religion Foundation says it simply wants all religions to be treated equally, including the religion of atheism. (On second thought, they might object to being called a religion.) If the Illinois state government allows one religious symbol, a nativity scene, in the state Capitol, surely it must allow other religious or philosophical symbols of other religions: a menorah, a crescent and star, or whatever would symbolize the sincerely held beliefs of atheists … the Great Black Bowling Ball of Oblivion, perhaps.”
But the blogger pointed out there might have been additional reaction had the message been: “Judaism is just myth and superstition that bewitches believers and damns souls.”
“Does anyone believe that such a (purely hypothetical) sign would be allowed under the Illinois state capitol dome? Obviously not, because it is not so much an expression of faith as an attack on other people’s faith.”
The writer continued: “As is the plaque placed by the Freedom from Religion Foundation. It may be sincere mockery, but mockery and attack it clearly is.”
The report noted that FFRF spokesman Dan Barker admitted as much.
“He’s kind of right,” he said of Kelly, according to the column, “because the last couple of sentences do criticize religion, and of course, the beginning is a celebration of the winter solstice.”

http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/blue-stat...y-to-mock-god/