LISTEN: Glenn interviews pastor being targeted by the city of Houston

October 20, 2014

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Churches are under attack in Texas, as several faith leaders have had their sermons subpoenaed as part of an ongoing lawsuit over a progressive city ordinance. One pastor, Steve Riggle, joined Glenn on radio to discuss the case on radio today.

Below is a rough transcript of the segment:

GLENN: I want to tell you something about -- that is more concerning to me than Ebola to me in Texas. More concerning than anything that is happening in our country today. And that is the out, the outward attack and hostility and hatred of people of faith. People of faith are under attack. Our churches and our institutions, our pastors, our preachers, our priests, our rabbis are under attack. God forbid you say this mosque has radical Islamic imams preaching hatred. You have a bag of bricks fall on your head. And they immediately shut down everyone from even saying, wait a minute. The bombers came from that mosque. What are they being taught inside that mosque? God forbid the president immediately sends a team of delegates to apologize to that mosque as it happened in Oklahoma.

However, in Texas, in Houston, Texas, there is an ordinance that has been passed by the city, and in this ordinance, it is the most radical thing that you could imagine. And it says: If you are somebody who is even questioning your sexuality. You're a male, but you're not in transition to become a female, you're questioning your maleness. I might be a female. Might be neither. You can use anybody's bathroom. This is madness. Madness.

So here's what's happened: The city has gone hostile on churches because churches tried to overturn an ordinance, and I'm going to let somebody who knows all about tell you in a second. Tried to overturn it. They gathered 55,000 signatures. They only needed 17,000. They gathered 55,000 signatures. After the signatures were there going against the ordinance, they wanted it up on the ballot. They only needed 17,000. The city said, we can't. We can't read all of these. So the ones that weren't legible, they threw out. That brought them down to 31,000 signatures.

Well, this has ended up now in the court because they weren't allowed to have the signatures count to be on the ballot. So now it's ended up in court. What happened? Now, the city is saying, we want all of your sermons, we want the sermons for all of -- everything that was preached, we want anything that was passed out. We want anything that was presented. We want anything that you approved or even saw. This goes against the Constitution. You do not have a right to go into a house of worship and ask them for their policies. For their -- their sermons. They have a right to speak out their mind, unless they are preaching hatred and violence towards others.

Now, that's where they're get you. Because you're against diversity. Steven Riggle, he is the Grace Community church pastor in Houston, Texas. He is one of the guys -- he is one of the main guys leading this, and I'm sorry to say, pastor. I have not been up on this ordinance at all. We haven't paying attention. Nobody has. Tell me exactly the ordinance, and what happened, and now what the city is saying.

RIGGLE: Well, it's an equal rights ordinance from our mayor, who is the openly lesbian of the largest -- she's a lesbian mayor. Of one of the largest cities in the country. This is her final term, so she -- this is her crowning legislation to get this through. We opposed it basically on, first, three terms. Gender identity, gender expression, and public accommodations. Public accommodation means that whether it's a public or private business, if the public is allowed to go there, then that's -- it's defined as that. Secondly, gender expression and gender identity have to do not with how you were born biologically, but whatever you think you are and express yourself to be. So a person could actually -- a man could go into a restaurant. Say, I'm going to go into a lady's restroom. And if he was stopped and said, you can't go in there. He can say, I may look like a man, but I express myself as a woman. He can go in there.

GLENN: He could be a predator, and you can't say anything to him as long as he expresses that he now feels like a woman.

RIGGLE: Exactly right. So we opposed it on that. We also opposed it on the idea that it was an unequal rights ordinance because what it was giving was granting a certain group of people rights that no one else had or giving them rights only because of their lifestyle choice. We are for equal rights. But the -- gay community already has all the rights the rest of us have. We opposed it on that basis. And the mayor already had the city council lined up to vote for it. We had a polling company do a poll in the city. 82 percent came back and said they were opposed to this ordinance. We gave it back to the mayor. Gave it to the council members. They voted it in anyway.

So we did a referendum. We gathered -- we knew we had 31,000. Right? And the city secretary, who is the only one charged by the city charter with verifying signatures, stopped counting at 19,000 because we already passed the threshold way a 93 pass rate. And then the city attorney inserted himself, the city secretary was called to the mayor's office with a meeting with the mayor and the city attorney, and she was asked to attach a paragraph that they had written to her report. Which she did.

And basically the city attorney had inserted himself, which has never happened in the history of the city before, and disqualified more than half of the petition signatures.

GLENN: Why? On what basis?

RIGGLE: Well, on basis like you can't read them. They weren't done right. Blah, blah, blah. One sitting city council member's petition was thrown out. My daughter's petition was thrown out, and a third grader could read her signature. This is over and over and over again.

For people who are listening who think somehow this might be some kind of personal spat with the mayor, absolutely not. What you have here is you have the violation of our first amendment rights. You have the violation of our religious liberty. And, thirdly, you have two people, the mayor and the city attorney, who have single-handedly taken away the voting rights of the fourth largest city in the country.

GLENN: So now they've come to you and they've said, not only you, but everyone, everyone who is in favor of this -- favor the repeal of this ordinance, they're asking for what exactly? Your sermons, but what else?

RIGGLE: Here's what happened. A couple of community people and a couple of pastors together filed a lawsuit against the city to force them to put this on the ballot. The five pastors were issued subpoenas by the city. None of the five of us were party to the lawsuit. And in the original subpoena, they asked for 17 different kinds of -- of -- 17 different areas of communication, including sermons, any emails, text messages, correspondence, anything we communicated to the congregation and included in the subpoena was about the ordinance, about the referendum and about the mayor personally. Anything that had been said about the mayor. So it was very, very broad.

And the mayor and city attorney when challenged on this said, we didn't even know that subpoena was going out. Which, if anyone knows the mayor and the city attorney, they would know -- there's no way that the mayor and the city attorney didn't know that was going out. They just got caught. So the five of us said no way. So we, alliance freedom attorneys came in to defend us, and we have said to the mayor, we don't have any problem with you having all of our sermons. In fact, I've said publicly, if the mayor and the city attorney will agree to listen to all of my sermons, I'll give them 31 years' worth. That's how long I've been in this city. They can have them all. As a matter of fact, they're already on the website. They can go there and get them any day of the week. But what we are opposed to is the state telling us that we have to turn those things over for their inspection.

GLENN: Have you ever seen anything like this?

RIGGLE: Well, I've never seen anything like it, but more than that is that Eric Stanley, the lead counsel with the alliance defending freedom, he was asked that same question, and he said -- and, you know, they do this constitutional law stuff all over the country and religious liberty cases. He said, I've never seen anything remotely like this at all.

GLENN: This is the most dangerous thing I've seen. This is more dangerous to the republic of Texas than Ebola is. This is more dangerous than anything I've ever seen. Everybody who said -- Stu, did you pull up those phrases? I asked Stu about an hour ago. Go find the phrases of people when we said, the next thing we know, if you say yes, this is not about equal rights. It's never about equal rights. This is about shutting people down. As Jeffy said, diversity is great unless it disagrees with my opinion. That's what this has been about. Shutting down the churches and shutting down the people of faith and everyone said, that would never ever happen.

STU: Yeah. Slate. Will churches be forced to conduct gay weddings? Not a chance. That's just a scare tactic conservative groups use to scare voters.

GLENN: It's happening right now. It's happening in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, right now. Two ministers are being threatened with seven years in jail unless they perform a gay wedding. So Slate magazine, liar.

STU: Washington Post. They do allow for outliers here. But they say:

We've be warned nationwide same-sax marriage would bring an unprecedented wave of conflicts between married and same-sex couples and religious traditionalists, who would refuse to provide services in any other way to facilitate the marriages, thus we would finally see clear examples of the harm created by same-sex marriage. These fears have been largely unrealized so far.

GLENN: Have they? How about the people who won't make wedding cakes?

STU: Yeah, and they do say there have been a few celebrated conflicts that they allow for.

GLENN: This is -- a few celebrated? Only because it's the beginning. Only because it's the beginning.

Here's what I would like to do. I'm going to give you the address of the mayor.

Mayor Annise Parker.

Houston City Hall.

901 Bagby Street.

Houston, TX 77002.

I would like to ask all preachers, all pastors, all rabbis, to send her your sermons. In fact, if you're not a preacher, pastor or rabbi, I would like to ask you to do your own homework. Go look some things up from George Whitfield. The first evangelical in America. Go look him up. Go find some of his speeches and some of his sermons on religious liberty. Go find the best sermons you can find on religious liberty and send them to city hall in Houston.

America, we have -- there are not a lot of chances left. We've got to wake up. Our churches must wake up. If you're a pastor, a priest, a rabbi, if you have any -- any flock that you are supposed to be shepherding. You better get your staff out and start leading your flock. Or you'll lose your staff, your flock, and your position. This is the most dangerous thing I've seen. And we are becoming openly hostile to God. It doesn't end well when a nation like ours does that.

Pastor, anything else you want to add to this?

RIGGLE: Just one thing, that the city attorney at a press conference last week just made this comment regarding the outrage that is now happening all over the country. We're getting inundated with people calling and emailing and saying how outraged they are over this. Now, remember this is about first amendment. It's about religious liberty. And it's about voting. The city attorney about all the outrage. I quote his words.

It's ridiculous.

That's a quote. So people better be outraged. And they better lift their voices and they better start screaming.

GLENN: Steve, anything I can do for you, you please contact us. We're in this fight with you. I'll stand with you shoulder to shoulder. And millions of Americans, I hope, will do the same, but anything you need. Thank you so much. God bless. Steve Riggles, the founding senior pastor.

The Deep State's NEW plan to backstab Trump

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

We cannot make the same mistake we made in 2016 — celebrating victory while the deep state plots its next move.

In 2016, Donald Trump shocked the world by defeating Hillary Clinton. Conservatives cheered, believing we’d taken back the reins of our country. But we missed the bigger battle. We failed to recognize the extent of the damage caused by eight years of Barack Obama and decades of progressive entrenchment. The real war isn’t won at the ballot box. It’s being waged against an insidious force embedded deep within our institutions: the administrative state, or the “deep state.”

This isn’t a new problem. America’s founders foresaw it, though they didn’t have a term for “deep state” back in the 1700s. James Madison, in Federalist 48, warned us that combining legislative, executive, and judicial powers in the same hands is “the very definition of tyranny.” Yet today, that’s exactly where we stand. Unelected bureaucrats in agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Justice hold more power than the officials we vote for. They control the levers of government with impunity, dictating policies and stifling change.

This is the fight for the soul of our nation. The founders’ vision of a constitutional republic is under siege.

We’ve felt the consequences of this growing tyranny firsthand. During COVID-19, so-called experts ran our lives, crushing civil liberties under the guise of public safety. Our intelligence agencies and justice system turned into weapons of political warfare, targeting a sitting president and his supporters. Meanwhile, actual criminals were given a pass, turning American cities into lawless war zones.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816 that “the functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.” Today, we see Jefferson’s prophecy fulfilled. The deep state exercises unchecked power over our freedoms, and information itself is controlled by the fourth branch of government: the legacy media.

Even when we win elections, the deep state doesn’t concede defeat. It switches to survival mode. Trump’s first term proved this. Despite a historic mandate to dismantle the bureaucracy, the deep state fought back with everything it had: leaks, investigations, court rulings, and obstruction at every turn. And now, with the possibility of Trump returning to office, the deep state is preparing to do it again.

Progressives are laying out their attack plan — and they’re not even hiding it.

U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) recently boasted about forming a “shadow cabinet” to govern alongside the deep state, regardless of who’s in the White House. Nickel called it “democracy’s insurance policy.” Let’s be clear: This isn’t insurance. It’s sabotage.

They’ll employ a “top down, bottom up, inside out” strategy to overwhelm and collapse any effort to reform the system. From the top, federal judges and shadow officials will block Trump’s every move. Governors in blue states like California and New York are gearing up to resist federal authority. During Trump’s first term, California filed over 100 lawsuits against his administration. Expect more of the same starting January 20.

From the bottom, progressive groups like the American Civil Liberties Union will flood the streets with protesters, much as they did to oppose Trump’s first-term immigration reforms. They’ve refined their tactics since 2016 and are prepared to unleash a wave of civil unrest. These aren’t spontaneous movements; they’re coordinated assaults designed to destabilize the administration.

Finally, from the inside, the deep state will continue its mission of self-preservation. Agencies will drag their feet, leak sensitive information, and undermine policies from within. Their goal is to make everything a chaotic mess, so the heart of their power — the bureaucratic core — remains untouched and grows stronger.

We cannot make the same mistake we made in 2016 — celebrating victory while the deep state plots its next move. Progressives never see themselves as losing. When they’re out of power, they simply shift tactics, pumping more blood into their bureaucratic heart. We may win elections, but the war against the deep state will only intensify. As George Washington warned in his Farewell Address, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force; and force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

This is the fight for the soul of our nation. The founders’ vision of a constitutional republic is under siege. The deep state has shown us its plan: to govern from the shadows, circumventing the will of the people. But now that the shadows have been exposed, we have a choice. Will we accept this silent tyranny, or will we demand accountability and reclaim our nation’s heart?

The battle is just beginning. We can’t afford to lose.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Drone mystery exposes GLARING government incompetence

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone issue is getting way out of hand.

Earlier this month, Glenn first reported on the mysterious drones stalking the night sky over New Jersey, but the situation is increasingly concerning as the sightings have escalated. Not only have drones been seen across the Northeast Coast, including over New York City, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, but recently, they have been spotted over the night skies of San Diego and other parts of Southern California.

It doesn't take an expert to identify the potential dangers and risks that dozens of undetectable, unidentified six-foot or larger drones pose to national security. Yet, our government's response has been one of unimaginable incompetence, leaving us to speculate on the origin and intention of these drones and wonder in astonishment at the government's ineptitude. Here are three examples of the government's lackluster response to the mystery drones:

Iranian Mothership and Missing Nuclear Warheads

- / Stringer | Getty Images

After several weeks of hubbub, New Jersey Representative, Jeff Van Drew gave an interview on Fox News where he claimed that the drones originated from an Iranian "mothership" off the East Coast of the United States. This theory has since been disproven by satellite images, which show that all Iranian drone carriers are far from U.S. shores. Another theory suggests that drones may be equipped with sensors capable of detecting nuclear material and that they are looking for a nuclear warhead that recently went missing! With these apocalyptic theories gaining traction in the absence of any real answer from our government, one can't help but question the motive behind the silence.

Pentagon's Limp Wristed Response

Alex Wong / Staff | Getty Images

In a recent press conference, national security spokesman John Kirby responded to reporters demanding answers about the government's lack of transparency, which has caused increasing public anxiety. He insisted that the drones did not pose a threat and were not assets of a foreign power, such as from Iran or China--even though he is still uncertain about their identity and origin. He also claimed that many of the sightings were simply misidentifications of normal aircraft.

This lackluster answer has only further inflamed national anxieties and raised even more questions. If the government is unsure of the identity of the drones, how do they know if they are a threat or if they aren't foreign assets? If they aren't foreign, does that mean they are U.S. assets? If so, why not just say so?

The Pentagon has also stated that they are leaving it up to local law enforcement to spearhead the investigation after concluding that these drones pose no threat to any military installation. This has left many feeling like the federal government has turned a blind eye to a serious issue that many Americans are very concerned about.

Where's Pete Buttigieg?

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

We are in the closing weeks of the Biden administration, and with the finish line in sight, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg probably figured nothing else could go wrong on his watch—but boy was he wrong. As Secretary of Transportation, Buttigieg is in charge of the FAA, the agency responsible for managing all air traffic across the nation. One would think that mysterious, 6-foot-long, seemingly intractable drones are invisible on radar and flying above major cities would pose a serious threat to the myriad of legal aircraft that traverse our skies. Yet, Buttigieg has been silent on the issue, adding another failure to his resume which includes: malfunctioning airplanes, the train derailment in Ohio, and the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse, just to name a few.

Glenn: How Alvin Bragg turned hero Daniel Penny into a villain

Michael M. Santiago / Staff | Getty Images

We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty.

America no longer has a single, shared understanding of justice. Two Americas now exist, each applying justice differently depending on who you are and where you live. One America, ruled by common sense and individual courage, praises heroes who stand up to protect others. The other, driven by political agendas and corrupted institutions, punishes those same heroes for daring to act.

This stark division couldn’t be clearer than in the case of Daniel Penny, the Marine whose trial in New York City this week drew strong reactions from both sides across the divided line of justice.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare.

Penny was on a subway train last year when Jordan Neely — a man suffering from severe mental illness and reportedly high on drugs — began threatening passengers, saying, “I’m going to kill you all.” The fear on that subway car was palpable, but nobody moved. Nobody, that is, until Penny did what needed to be done. He took action to protect innocent lives.

In the America many of us used to believe in, Penny’s response would be heralded as heroic. His actions mirrored the courage of Todd Beamer on Flight 93, who, on September 11, 2001, rallied others with the words, “Let’s roll,” to prevent further tragedy. But in New York, courage doesn’t seem to count anymore. There, the system turns heroes into villains.

Penny subdued Neely using a chokehold, intending only to restrain him, not kill him. Tragically, Neely died. Penny, filled with remorse, told the police he never meant to hurt anyone. Yet, instead of being recognized for protecting others from a clear and present threat, Penny stood trial for criminally negligent homicide.

In Alvin Bragg’s New York, justice bends to ideology. The Manhattan district attorney has made a career of weaponizing the law, selectively prosecuting those who don’t fit his narrative. He’s the same prosecutor who twisted legal precedent to go after Donald Trump on business charges no one had ever faced before. Then, he turned his sights on Daniel Penny.

A jury may have acquitted Penny, but what happened in New York City this week isn’t justice. When the rule of law changes depending on the defendant’s identity or the prosecutor's political motives, we’re no longer living in a free country. We’re living in a state where justice is a game, and ordinary Americans are the pawns.

The system failed Jordan Neely

It’s worth asking: Where were activists like Alvin Bragg when Neely was suffering on the streets? Jordan Neely was a tragic figure — a man with a long history of mental illness and over 40 arrests, including violent assaults. The system failed him long before he stepped onto that subway train. Yet rather than confront that uncomfortable truth, Bragg’s office decided to target the man who stepped in to prevent a tragedy.

This isn’t about justice. It’s about power. It’s about advancing a narrative where race and identity matter more than truth and common sense.

It’s time to demand change

The Daniel Penny case — and others like it — is a wake-up call. We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty. Americans must demand an end to politically driven prosecutions, hold DAs like Alvin Bragg accountable, and stand up for the principle that true justice is blind, consistent, and fair.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare. It’s time to choose which America we want to live in.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

CEO Brian Thompson's killer reveals COWARDICE of the far-left death cult

Jeff Swensen / Stringer | Getty Images

Early on the chilly morning of Wednesday, December 4th, Brian Thompson, CEO of health insurance giant, UnitedHealthcare, was walking through Midtown Manhattan on his way to a company conference. Suddenly, a masked and hooded figure silently allegedly stepped onto the sidewalk behind Thompson, drew a 3-D printed, silenced pistol, and without warning fired multiple shots into Thompson's back before fleeing the scene on an electric bicycle. After a multiple-day manhunt, a 26-year-old lead suspect was arrested at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania after being recognized by an employee.

This was not "vigilante justice." This was cold-blooded murder.

As horrific as the murder of a husband and father in broad daylight in the center of New York City is, the story only gets worse. Even before the murder suspect was arrested, left-wing extremists were already taking to X to call him a "hero" and a "vigilante" who "took matters into his own hands." Even the mainstream media joined in on the glorification, as Glenn pointed out on air recently, going out of the way to show how physically attractive the murder suspect was. This wave of revolting and nihilistic fanfare came in response to the findings of online investigators who surmised the murder suspect's motives to retaliate against healthcare companies for corruption and denied coverage. The murder suspect supposedly underwent a major back surgery that left him with back pain, and some of his internet fans apparently viewed his murder of Thompson as retribution for the mistreatment that he and many other Americans have suffered from healthcare companies.

me liking tweets celebrating the assassination of the united healthcare ceo pic.twitter.com/N41w51ZuZR
— 🔻 (@pegasustits) December 5, 2024

The murder suspect and his lackeys don't seem to understand that, other than depriving two children of their father right before Christmas, he accomplished nothing.

The murder suspect failed to achieve his goal because he was too cowardly to try.

If the murder suspect's goals were truly to "right the wrongs" of the U.S. healthcare system, he had every tool available to him to do so in a constructive and meaningful manner. He came from a wealthy and prominent family in the Baltimore area, became the valedictorian at a prestigious all-boys prep school, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a master's in engineering. Clearly, the murder suspect was intelligent and capable, and if he had put his talent into creating solutions for the healthcare industry, who knows what he could have accomplished?

This is the kind of behavior the far-left idolizes, like communists on college campuses who wear shirts that celebrate the brutal Cuban warlord, Che Guevara. Merchandise celebrating the UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect is already available, including shirts, hoodies, mugs, and even Christmas ornaments. Will they be sporting his face on their T-shirts too?

A liberal TikToker is selling a t-shirt that glorifies the recent assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in NYC.
“deny , defend, depose” was reported to have been on the shell casings. pic.twitter.com/IWpHYkx2lF
— SteveSant66 🇺🇸 (@SSant66) December 8, 2024

This macabre behavior does not breed creation, achievement, success, or life. It only brings death and risks more Americans falling into this dangerous paradigm. But we still have a chance to choose life. We just have to wake up and take it.

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