Whither Federalism Among Fake Conservatives Of Our Time Like AG Greg Abbot

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Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – “Folks, please understand this.  Bashing Obama is fun, I get it.  It’s not going to get you anywhere.  It doesn’t get us anywhere.  Let’s go over this one more time.  The citizens of Houston elected a mayor, Annise Parker.  The mayor was concurrently elected with a council in Harris County.  The council decided they wanted to pass this anti-discrimination ordinance, changing the availability of bathrooms and what have you.  Many people of Christian faith, Judeo-Christian faith believe this assault on their values, their assault on Christianity, and opposed it.”  Check out today’s transcript and Clip of the Day for the rest….

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Folks, please understand this.  Bashing Obama is fun, I get it.  It’s not going to get you anywhere.  It doesn’t get us anywhere.  Let’s go over this one more time.  The citizens of Houston elected a mayor, Annise Parker.  The mayor was concurrently elected with a council in Harris County.  The council decided they wanted to pass this anti-discrimination ordinance, changing the availability of bathrooms and what have you.  Many people of Christian faith, Judeo-Christian faith believe this assault on their values, their assault on Christianity, and opposed it.  They went to through the democratic process.  They did what you’re supposed to do….

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They went and started a ballot initiative to put it to a vote.  They got enough signatures and they were told: Your little signature drive, you’ve got three times the amount of signatures needed.  We’re not going to accept it.  It doesn’t look legitimate to us, said the mayor and her henchmen.

So the ordinance goes into effect and the preachers and pastors that were concerned about this begin talking about it from the pulpit, and begin discourse and dialogue with their parishioners.  This is what they’re supposed to do, for Heaven’s sake!  This is why they’re a preacher, not in spite of, why.  Me, as a Roman Catholic, I turn to a priest.  If I need spiritual guidance and serious catechism, I can turn to a secular source, but I should probably turn to my priest, and I do.  Others, Judeo-Christians, turn to their rabbi or pastor, parson, whatever the terminology, for advice, for comradery, for conversation: Hey, am I nuts?  The Bible says we shouldn’t be endorsing this.  Am I crazy, Pastor?  This is what you do.  This is why the pastor is the pastor.  Now the mayor is trying to say, [mocking] “We never put the request for the sermon.  We just want the dialogue between the pastor and the parishioners.”  That’s even worse!  That’s even worse.  Now you want private communication, private.

So Greg Abbott, the Attorney General of Texas, representing the Texas Constitution, fires a letter off to the mayor, to the city attorney saying: Hey, you can’t do that.  Why?  Because the First Amendment says you can’t do that.  Okay, what First Amendment?  To the U.S. Constitution.  We talked about this on Thursday and on Wednesday.  Let’s go over this again.  Citizens of Houston elect a mayor and a council.  That council enacted the ordinance.  When the ordinance came up as a question and the mayor thinks the preachers are in violation of it, she is acting under her alleged authority as mayor to issue these subpoenas to these preachers and pastors for their sermons or their conversations with laity.  At every step of this process, the mayor of the City of Houston in the County of Harris has acted unilaterally.  She has not acted on behalf of Barack Obama, the Congress of the United States.  She has acted in her own capacity, inside the sovereign State of Texas.

Folks, the Incorporation Doctrine is horrible law and mythology.  The first eight amendments to the U.S. Constitution do not apply to any of the 50 states.  Even if the state adapted and said that it does, it still doesn’t.  It would only apply in the language and terminology of that state’s constitution, unless a federal authority has acted.  No federal authority has acted.  Why doesn’t the attorney general for the State of Texas frickin’ know this?  Again, this is Federalism 101.

I’m not going to say that Ms. Davis is any better, because I’m certain that she’s not.  As a Roman Catholic, I am always going to vote, if I’m forced to, if I’m voting in an election, I’m going to vote Catholic first, Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian second.  I’m going to vote for life.  That’s what I’m going to do.  Mr. Abbott is seriously in the wrong here.  He is in error.  What evidence do you have in this campaign that he’s going to support you as Texans and is going to govern you as Texans?  You have every indication that the exact opposite is going to happen.  He’s going to govern you as wards of the federal monstrosity, Mordor on the Potomac River.  [mocking] “Yeah, Mike, but he’s a conservative.  He’s one of us, man.  And he likes guns, too.  You need to shut up!”  I can hear you right now.  None of this matters.  The process doesn’t matter to most people, it just doesn’t matter.  It does matter!

If you want to deal with that border atrocity down there and you don’t want to wait for Obama to go down there and do it, do it yourself.  You’re a sovereign state, for Heaven’s sake.  Your border is not open to anyone that you don’t say it’s open to.  They cannot force you to accommodate alien friends, they can’t.  I’ve demonstrated this and proven it conclusively on this show.  They might be able to, with the aid and assistance of a state, but that’s not what’s at issue here.

In the most allegedly conservative of places, in the most allegedly federal of institutions, that being the government of Texas, if Texas doesn’t even know its own role, how in the heck can we expect anyone else to know it?  How can you expect federal legislators to take their oath to the Constitution seriously when they have Greg Abbotts running around abusing and perverting that Constitution and its intent, its ratified intent and its proper usage?  You also have the junior senator from the State of Texas, Ted Cruz, weighing in on this, saying the exact same thing that Abbott said.  No, Senator Cruz, with all due respect, you’re wrong.  It’s not a First Amendment issue, and it certainly doesn’t concern you.

So where are the “conservatives” of Harris County?  Where is the attorney general of the State of Texas to inform the mayor: No, this isn’t a First Amendment issue.  This is a Texas Constitution, Bill of Rights, Article I, Sections 4 and 6, that’s what applies.  [mocking] “Why are you making a mountain out of a molehill?”  Because it is a mountain.  It’s a very large mountain, and apparently there aren’t very many people that can climb it.  This stuff is so simple.

Now, I’m going to answer my own question.  I’m going to tell you why the reaction is that this is a First Amendment Issue.  Because it makes it easy.  We don’t want to have to go through the rigmarole and the pain and suffering and the difficult details of having to explain to people that we’ve been lying to them for the last 80 years as “conservatives,” and that we even have any use for state constitutions anymore as little more than ways to divvy up state tax revenue, which is what most state constitutions are used for now.  Let’s just rely on the federal edition.  People carry a pocket federal Constitution around anyway.  They don’t carry around a state constitution.  Nobody even makes state constitutions, although I believe you can find one here and there.

These issues and the way they are handled, ladies and gentlemen, they do matter.  This is how those of you that say you want the Constitution to be enforced and that’s all you want, this case is a great one to start with.  Get the debate parameters correct.  Article I of Texas Constitution, Section 4, we begin with “Religious Tests.”  Then we get to Article I, Section 6 “Freedom of Worship.”  There’s a clause in there, “All men have a natural and indefeasible right . . . but it shall be the duty of the Legislature to pass such laws as may be necessary to protect equally every religious denomination.”  It shall be the duty of the legislature.  It doesn’t say it shall be the duty of the Houston mayor.

Let’s move to Section 8, “Freedom of Speech and Press; Libel.”  “Every person shall be at liberty to speak. . .”  That would include preachers, I would imagine.  “. . . write or publish his opinions on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that privilege; and no law shall ever be passed curtailing the liberty of speech or of the press.”  A law was passed called the anti-discrimination ordinance in Houston.  Again, where’s the attorney general?  “In prosecutions for the publican of papers, investigating the conduct of officers, or men in public capacity . . .” the rest of the clause deals with how this can be applied, how you can circumscribe or proscribe speech.  You can’t, unless it’s speech that comes from an official of the State of Texas, which the mayor is.  It is undeniable, unequivocal here that the law to be applied in Houston is the Texas Constitution, not the First Amendment.  But people love to hear the sound of “It’s a First Amendment case.”  You know why?  Because they’ve never read the Texas Constitution.[/private]

I know the Louisiana Constitution Bill of Rights, Article I, Section 8, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of the Press.  It has pretty much an identical clause.  You can libel someone and be prosecuted for it.  You can abuse that speech.  As a matter of fact, when the Saints were fined by the NFL and lost nearly an entire season over the Bountygate scandal, there was only one individual, me, who was demanding and saying: Look, the 11^th Amendment says that a federal court can’t hear this case.  The Louisiana Constitution says that a federal court cannot hear this case.  This is an issue of speech as an NFL franchise headquartered in the State of Louisiana.  Louisiana courts ought to be hearing this arbitration, not a federal court.

Of course, I lost and was the only one that made the argument, even though for a brief while former Saint Jonathan Vilma, did pursue his case in a Louisiana court because his attorney had advised him: You’re going to get clobbered in a federal court, but you might have a chance and we have Article I, Section 8 of the Louisiana Constitution that we can use.  They did and it ultimately got kicked up to a federal judge.  At least they went through the right process.  We can’t call ourselves republicans, federalists and constitutionalists unless we’re willing to act like it.

End Mike Church Show Transcript