Houston Seizing Black Churches

by JASmius



Annise Parker's revenge, or just Christophobic, racist greed?:

Two churches nestled in what used to be one of Houston’s roughest neighborhoods are fighting back against the city. The Latter Day Deliverance Revival Center was established in the fifth ward in 1965 by Bishop Roy Lee Kossie. A few years later, Pastor Quinton Smith began pastoring at the Christian Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, also in the fifth ward. Both churches have grown and have had a positive impact on their community in each year since their establishment. Building a youth ministry center, a church-run food bank, and creating outreach programs for gang members, drug addicts, and alcoholics, the churches continue their work to transform the fifth ward.

Just not "fundamentally," but in a "knuckle-dragging, throw-back, Bible-thumping," grubbily private sector way.  They might even be unwilling to perform queer "marriages".

And remember, these are black churches.

Then public sector greed entered the vile picture:

The fifth ward is located just outside of downtown. Property values in the area have skyrocketed and continue to climb. The City of Houston offered to purchase the churches. When the churches refused, the city came back with threats of using eminent domain to acquire the property as part of an urban development plan. [emphases added]

Sounds almost Trumpesque, doesn't it?  With an ISIS chaser for good measure.

Fortunately, the Liberty Institute is lending LDDRC and CFMBC some nominally additional direct muscle and a Mr. Universe competition's worth of free publicity:

HHA’s exercise of eminent domain to condemn the Churches’ properties violates their rights as defined by The Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Texas Constitution. The HHA’s looming condemnation of the Churches’ properties would substantially burden their free exercise of religion. The HHA cannot justify this substantial burden: it lacks a compelling government interest and its plan is not narrowly tailored. Furthermore, the threatened takings are improper as the properties are not intended for “public use” as required by Article 1, Section 17 of the Texas Constitution.

It's sheer, unmitigated, predatory persecution on the part of a city government that is run by the Lavender Lobby, and which would never be perpetrated upon, say, a mosque for reasons that ought to be sufficiently gapingly obvious that they require no elaboration.

Hearteningly, our brothers and sisters in Ward Five are not meekly submitting to these blatant violations:

“We’ve been here for years. We’ve watched the children grow up. We’ve been a safe place for them when things are bad at home. If the city makes us leave the Fifth Ward, what will happen to the children? We just want the City to leave us alone so we can keep helping these kids,” said Pastor Smith.

Bishop Kossie added, “This is our home. This is where the LORD called us to serve and this is where we want to stay. We aren’t giving up without a fight.”

Not that they won't be crushed and evicted anyway, not unlike the Christians in the Middle East that still survive.  But if Houston is going to bulldoze these two churches like the Soviets of old, they should be made to do so as publicly as possible.

Exit thought: This outrage also answers the question of whether the Left hates Christians more than they pretend to favor African-Americans.

#BlackLivesMatterExceptWhenTheyFollowJesusChristInsteadOfBarackObama?