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Dave Welch was the petition ringleader. The others were actively involved in the petition process. And I find it interesting that they don't show the full list of about 20 people who were subpoenaed.
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Subpoenaing people who were actively involved in a petition that is central to a court case has nothing to do with the First Amendment. Why should church employees be immune from subpoenas for activities they participated in and the churches they work for participated in that are central to a lawsuit they brought against the City?
"We're going to sue you, but we don't think you should be able to gather any evidence from us."
Being involved in a petition =/= being a party to a lawsuit. You last quote is nonsense. No one is opposing the gathering of evidence from the parties (yet). I'm sure there will be woefully overbroad discovery requests served on them, but that's not the issue here. It is the City and Mayor abusing their power and trampling on the right to engage in religious practices without government interference or intimidation.
The selective enforcement of this Equal Rights ordinance is ridiculous. I haven't looked back at it in a while, but I'm almost certain that "religion" was a protected category under the ordinance. Didn't see the qualification that stated "no one may discriminate against you based on your religion
so long as your views are not opposed to the Mayor's agenda."
I know you don't have a choice for a number of reasons, but you really can't honestly defend this one RTT.