Pastor Gary Gordon PRESS RELEASE
“Iowa Church Officials Poised to Defend Small Business Owners’ First Amendment Rights”
DATE: 8/16/13
FROM: Cornerstone World Outreach, Sioux City Iowa
CONTACT: 712-253-9249, Rev. Cary K. Gordon, Executive Pastor
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Cornerstone
World Outreach Executive Pastor, Rev. Cary Gordon, announced today that
small business owners and church officials across Iowa should contact
the offices of Cornerstone Church at 712-274-7572 ext. 0 if at any time
they believe they have been targeted by a state sanctioned Human Rights Commission with accusations of discrimination against sexual behaviors which violate their religious freedoms of conscience.
Rev. Gordon expressed concern today stating, “A man who wished death upon my entire family at Christmas was recently appointed as a Human ‘Rights’ Commissioner in Sioux City, Iowa.
A city organization with prosecutorial power - an extension of our
judicial branch - charged with protecting citizens like me from
religious discrimination, has rewarded and empowered someone they are
supposed to prosecute.”
Pastor Gordon’s call for Commissioner Raasch’s removal
stemmed from a December 2010 exchange initiated by Raasch in response
to Gordon’s public advocacy of removing three State Supreme Court judges
from the bench who foisted gay marriage upon Iowa citizens. Raasch
contacted Gordon through Facebook and wrote: “You
are a joke and your ‘church’ is our version of Westboro Baptist. You
are haters and bigots and you will get what's coming to you sooner or
later. I hope you rot in hell."
In his blog, Pastor Gordon shared that he
responded to him with as much decorum as he could muster, attempting to
share the purpose of Jesus' crucifixion with him and its connection to
the Christmas holiday he was desecrating. According to the Sioux City Journal, Gordon responded to Raasch: "I hope you repent of your sins and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I wouldn't want you or anyone else to go to hell."
Gordon expressed frustration with the failure of the Sioux City Council to properly handle the situation. “After
I brought the issue of Raasch’s death wishes against my family and the
slander against my congregation to the City Council’s attention, and
Commissioner Scott Raasch, a Democrat, admitted to the threatening
exchange, you would have thought our Mayor would have removed him.
However, Mayor Bob Scott, also a registered Democrat, refused
his moral obligation to protect Sioux City’s religious community from
an outspoken anti-religious bully like Scott Raasch.”
In
the light of this tragic error, Cornerstone Church wants all Iowa
citizens to know that when any local branch of the Iowa Civil Rights
Commission puts citizen religious liberties in their cross-hairs and
elected officials refuse their obligations to protect the public from
those who wish to violate their first amendment rights, we are one phone
call away. We intend to connect them with pro bono legal defense
against any form of anti-religious bigotry masquerading as organizations
who “defend Human ‘Rights’.”
Pastor
Gordon shared that a trend pitting Americans’ first amendment rights
against an unconstitutional and aggressive anti-religious crusade
crafted by homosexual activists can be easily identified from San
Antonio, Texas, to Sioux City, Iowa. Said Gordon, “The
City Council of San Antonio, led by Councilman Diego Bernal and
supported by Mayor Julian Castro, is attempting to codify discriminatory
regulations that would lay the foundation for litigation against any
person or business with biblical values. The most outrageous part of the
proposed ordinance said if you had ever ‘in word or in deed’
discriminated against any of the protected classes, you were rejected
from service on a city board and would not be allowed to receive a city
contract. This kind of anti-Christian bigotry is unparalleled in
American history. What this ordinance is designed to do is punish anyone
for verbally objecting to a sexual deviancy that was criminalized in
the United States for more than 200 years. The first amendment is being
scandalously desecrated.”
Gordon continued, “Bad
ordinances aside, in Sioux City, Iowa, we are doing something worse
than San Antonio. We are openly promoting persons who have a public and
private record of the worst kind of potentially violent hatred for
people of faith to positions of prosecutorial authority on our own Human
Rights Commission.”
Raasch publicly apologized for what he described as “unChristlike”
behavior, but he refused to resign his position after his own
outrageous remarks against Pastor Gordon’s family and church were
uncovered publicly. Gordon accepted Raasch’s apology, saying it was “overdue”, but maintained that a forced apology made three years late had nothing to do with qualifications and credibility. “The
fact that he refuses to step down proves he does not have authentic
remorse for his actions. For example, just because I forgive an
adulterer caught in the act, does not mean I should also promote them as
a credible town marriage counselor. How could anyone be expected to
believe that Raasch could prosecute any other citizen for behaving as he
has and have any credibility during the prosecution?”
Pastor
Gordon shared his view that the Sioux City Council’s refusal to remove
Raasch, despite his admitted disqualifications for the position, is a
dangerous abdication of their sworn duty to protect citizens. “The
fact that our City Council will not remove him, when it is within their
power to do so, makes them complicit with his behavior. People of faith
are clearly not safe in Sioux City, Iowa, so we are lawyered-up and
ready to defend the freedoms of any citizens that contact us for help.”
Gordon
repeatedly explained the problem with catching a guarded organization
like a Human Rights Commission in the act of bullying religious people. “Since
the DesMoines Register revealed 27 HRC sting operations, ex post facto,
which entrapped Iowa business owners in alleged infractions against
protected classes, and we know that HRC activities remain generally
secretive, and outside the scope of public scrutiny,
it is very important that citizens know we are willing to help them
with pro-bono legal defense in the shameful event that they have been
discriminated against on religious grounds.”
Ironically, the Human Rights Commission describes itself as an organization committed to stopping illegal acts of discrimination. The Commission describes itself as, “…a neutral fact-finding agency that investigates complaints of discrimination… Whereas we investigate cases of discrimination we are also devoted to preventing such incidents.”
Scott
Raasch’s threatening remarks made after Gordon publicly participated in
a 2010 ouster of three state Supreme Court judges responsible for
forcing gay marriage upon Iowans, were not his first remarks against
people of Christian orthodoxy who objected to homosexual behavior.
Raasch had been an outspoken opponent of religious liberty since first
making public remarks on February 10, 2009.
In
a publicized response to a successfully passed city resolution
recognizing marriage as an institution between one man and one woman,
Raasch argued that Christians who opposed gay marriage without also
opposing adultery were “…hypocritical bigots that have caused Sioux City to become a joke.”
Raasch’s public activism against people of orthodox Christian faith continued in another published remark on March 6th
of 2009, addressed to all people of faith who disagreed with homosexual
marriage. In response to news that Christian people who objected to gay
marriage had been appointed to various Sioux City boards and
commissions, he wrote, “We
are seeing our city's boards and commissions being packed with these
folks, and I think it's time to wake up. If people want to spread their
non-inclusive opinions and religious beliefs, do it in your homes and
places of worship.”
With regard to the value of honorable and trustworthy representative government, Cornerstone Church takes the position of John Dickinson, signer of the Constitution: “[W]hat
innumerable acts of injustice may be committed – and how fatally may
the principles of liberty be [shattered] – by a succession of
[officials] utterly independent of the people?[i]” [Emphasis Added]
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