A pastor in California has filed a lawsuit against San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria over Gloria’s insistence that he be removed from the San Diego’s Citizens Advisory Board on Police/Community Relations because of his belief in the Bible.
The case is on behalf of Dennis Hodges of the Church of Yeshua Ha Mashiach, and he had served on the commission since 2017.
But when he abstained from a vote condemning “transphobia,” his fellow commissioners told him to leave, and eventually they “influenced” Gloria to veto Hodge’s reappointment.
A report at the Washington Stand said the lawsuit charges, “This is an action for the unlawful discrimination and retaliation against Mr. Dennis Hodges, a devoted Christian pastor and public servant.”
It charges the mayor “under the influence of several of Mr. Hodges’ fellow commissioners, retaliated and discriminated against Mr. Hodges for adhering to his religious beliefs regarding gender identity and transgenderism.”
The report noted the commission voted in November 2021 on “a letter from the city of San Diego Human Relations Commissioner Tootie Thomas Regarding Ending Discrimination and Transphobia by Amplifying the Visibility and Voices of the Transgender Community.”
The idea was to publicize a letter promoting the local government’s plan to end “transphobia,” that claim that those who do not approve of the transgender ideology somehow fear or hate it.
Hodges abstained, explaining, about transgenderism, “I love all people. I love transgenders as well. But to me, it’s an abomination to the eyes of God, so I don’t agree with it.”
Other commissioners, the lawsuit charges, immediate began “a crusade to cancel a man for holding traditional, religious beliefs regarding the biological nature of a man and woman.”
That scheme failed, but then Gloria vetoed Hodges’s reappointment. He claimed the pastor made “repeated concerning public comments about LGBTQ people.”
So the complaint now charges Gloria with making his decision “against Mr. Hodges solely based on his beliefs on human creation and transgenderism — issues that are unrelated to his role on the Advisory Board.”
Hodges released a statement through his lawyers at Advocates for Faith and Freedom and said, “I am standing up for religious people nationwide who have been discriminated against solely because of their faith. What happened to me at the hands of our government should never happen to anyone else.”
The complaint seeks damages and reinstatement.
Lawyer Julianne Fleischer told the Stand, “No government authority should be able to wield their authority to attack other public servants for holding traditional, biblical values.”
IMPORTANT NOTE TO WND READERS: Shortly after Hamas terrorists fired over 5,000 rockets from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7 and then proceeded to attack the Jewish state by land, sea and air – torturing, burning, beheading and murdering well over a thousand people, including women, children and infants, and wounding and abducting hundreds more – world reaction was, in its own way, almost equally shocking.
For after the biggest one-day mass slaughter of Jews since the Nazi Holocaust, what followed was an outpouring of celebratory demonstrations, unbridled Jew-hatred, deliriously gleeful support for Hamas and bitter condemnation of the nation of Israel. Not just in the Arab-Muslim world, but throughout the Western world as well, including all across America.
Why? What is behind the explosion of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, pro-terror sentiment in the United States, where Israel has long been one of America’s closest friends and allies? Why are hordes of young “woke” LGBT demonstrators marching in support of Hamas – when Hamas wouldn’t think twice about binding and blindfolding them and throwing them off the roof of a tall building – as they routinely do in the Muslim world?
It turns out there’s one area of agreement that is so powerful, deep-seated and all-consuming that the vast differences between the deranged left and the murderous jihadists melt away into Kumbaya harmony.
All of this and much more is completely exposed in November’s issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled ISRAEL VS. GLOBAL JIHAD: How Jew-hatred, radical Islam and Leftism are pushing us toward World War III. Beyond a deeply insightful dive into why leftists are surging toward radical Islam – which hates and dreams of raping and butchering them – this Whistleblower issue includes fantastic articles by everyone from top Israeli analyst (and former Israel Defense Forces officer) Caroline Glick to Harvest Christian Fellowship’s Pastor Greg Laurie on the current war in Israel and biblical prophecies regarding the End Times … which he says are now upon us.
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This article was originally published by the WND News Center.
