Houston's Subpoena of Sermons

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that Houston had subpoenaed sermons of pastors who were opposing the city's new transgendered can use whatever bathroom they want ordinance.  This sounds like something King James I might have done.  The October 29, 2014 Houston Chronicle reports that the mayor has retreated from the sermon subpoenas and explains that what started this was that the people of Houston had requested a referendum on the ordinance, and the mayor decided that the referendum did not conform to the city charter.  I don't know what the city charter requires, but I suspect the mayor knows that the referendum would have failed.  Even Houston isn't that liberal.  A bit more about the dispute from the October 21, 2014 Christian Post:

The conservative Texas Values Action organization turned in an estimated 50,000 signatures to repeal HERO, well above the 17,269 required by law.

City attorney David Feldman concluded that many of the signatures were invalid and thus Texas Values did not obtain the necessary number of valid signatures for a referendum.

I can see how the validity of signatures matters.  I can't see how the content of sermons would be relevant to the validity of signatures.  This seems like an attempt to intimidate pastors into not preaching the Gospel.  The mayor of course, is a lesbian.