STATE DEMANDS PASTOR TURN
OVER SERMONS, NOTES 'This is an excessive display of the
government overreaching its authority', by Bob Unruh, 10/26/16, WND
The state of Georgia is demanding
copies of the sermons and related notes of a lay pastor who was fired by the
Department of Public Health after it investigated what he said in his church.
But Dr. Eric Walsh is resisting,
issuing a statement via his legal team that he will not comply with the demand
from state lawyers.
The state’s demand is in response to
a lawsuit filed by Walsh against the Department of Health charging
discrimination based on his religion and other civil rights violations.
He’s getting support from a pastor
who successfully fought off a demand by Houston officials for copies of his
sermons.
Walsh’s ordeal began in May 2014
when he accepted an offer as to become district health director with the state
agency. Only a week later, a state official asked him to provide copies of
sermons he had preached as a lay minister with a Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Lee Rudd, the agency’s human
resources director, then assigned staff members to listen to the YouTube
recordings immediately. Two days later, Walsh was fired.
At that point, lawyers with First Liberty Institute joined forces with the Atlanta legal team of Parks,
Chesin & Walbert to file a federal lawsuit against the state agency.
Now, in response to Walsh’s lawsuit,
the state has delivered a “Request
for Production of Documents” that
demands once again, among a flood of other paperwork, “copies of his sermon
notes and transcripts.”
“This is an excessive display of the
government overreaching its authority and violating the sanctity of the church,”
said Jeremy Dys, senior counsel for First Liberty.
“No government has the right to
require a pastor to turn over his sermons,” said Walsh in a statement released
by his lawyers. “I cannot and will not give up my sermons unless I am forced to
do so.”
Officials with the Georgia Department of Health declined to respond to a WND request for comment,
instead referring a reporter to the state attorney general, who did not respond
to a request for comment. Walsh’s lawyers scheduled a news conference as a
display of support.
On the guest list was Pastor Dave
Welch of Houston, one of five pastors whose sermons were demanded by a lesbian
mayor during her campaign to establish protections for her sexual preferences
in city code.
WND
broke the story when the city launched its action
against the pastors and also reported when Rush Limbaugh described Parker’s actions as possibly
“one of the most vile, filthy, blatant violations of the Constitution that I
have seen.” The mayor at the time, Annise
Parker, withdrew
the demands amid a flood of protest.
In a prepared statement Wednesday on
Walsh’s case, Welch said, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Georgia’s
demand is even worse than when the mayor of Houston demanded 17 different
categories of materials, including sermons, from … us.”
Welch, the executive director of the
Texas Pastor Council, said what is happening to Walsh is “worse than what
happened in Houston for multiple reasons.”
“First, this is state government
coming after a pastor, not just a rogue mayor in one city,” he said. “Also, the
state is demanding much more material: sermons, sermon notes, all documents
without even topical or time limits. It could even include margin notes in this
pastor’s preaching Bible. It’s almost as if they are ransacking the pastor’s
study. This sweeping demand is ominous and a threat to every pastor, every
church, every denomination, and every citizen of faith in America.”
Leaders of Concerned Women for
America Legislative Action Committee, part of the nation’s largest public
policy women’s group with 500,000 members, also came to Walsh’s defense.
Penny Nance, CEO, said: “The words
of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat
to justice everywhere,’ still reverberate today – especially as we witness the
‘Gestapo-like’ tactics of his native state. The state of Georgia’s blatant
attack on religious freedom, as they discriminate against another pastor, Dr.
Eric Walsh, is indeed a threat to every American, whatever our religious
beliefs.
“Can there be a clearer violation of
our First Amendment right to religious freedom than for the state to monitor,
examine, and retaliate against a person because of the sermons they share?”
WND
reported earlier on the case brought
against the state after its officials reviewed Walsh’s sermons and then fired
him.
“No one in this country should be
fired from their job for something that was said in a church or from a pulpit
during a sermon,” Dys told Fox
News when the case was filed. “He was fired for something he
said in a sermon. If the government is allowed to fire someone over what he
said in his sermons, they can come after any of us for our beliefs on
anything.”
The original state investigation of
Walsh’s sermons apparently was sparked by “one complaint” from an official with
a county Democratic Party and “gay activist.”
State officials also joked about
informing Walsh of his firing. The
telephone call was between Dr. Patrick
O’Neal, an agency official, and Kate Pfirman, an agency financial officer. The
call was captured on an answering machine, which also caught their conversation
after they thought they had hung up.
Pfirman said: “And I’m gonna be very
– I’m gonna try to come off as very cold, because I don’t want to say very
much. If I try to make it warm – I’ve thought that through, it’s gonna just not
– there’s no warm way to say it anyway.” Then there was laughter from both
parties.
O’Neal then said to inform Walsh,
“You’re out,” and there was another round of laughter.“It’s very funny,”
Pfirman said.
The
voicemail: In the Houston dispute, voters ultimately soundly rejected Parker’s ordinance
giving “gays” and transgendered people special rights.
http://www.wnd.com/2016/10/state-that-fired-pastor-demands-his-sermons-notes/
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