Mattie Parker, City Council gave a Fort Worth church a bullying blueprint | Opinion

Before the Fort Worth City Council’s controversial 6-4 vote on the Justice Residences, Mercy Culture Church’s planned shelter for victims of sex trafficking, Mayor Mattie Parker and council members received thousands of letters supporting or opposing the center. But there are two we want you to understand. One you probably know about. Another we’ll get to soon.

The one covered in our pages was a demand letter threatening to sue the mayor and individual council members for voting against the proposal. It was written on the church’s behalf by First Liberty Institute, the boutique law firm famous for representing a “Flight Attendant Who Refuses to be Canceled by a Woke Airline” and other disingenuous religious-freedom grievances.

Mayor Mattie Parker voted in favor of the residence. Whenever she’s asked, Parker insists that her vote was strictly out of concern for the law as it stands, beyond her or any council member’s personal beliefs about the church. “That’s not a legal reason for us to vote down or up a site plan amendment case, nor a zoning case for that matter,” she said.

She also cited the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which prevents religious discrimination in zoning law. For the mayor, it all adds up to an airtight argument for the church.

Yet, there is at least some dispute on the mayor’s read, as Oakhurst Neighborhood Association counsel Alison Ashmore reminded the City Council at the hearing. “The church is not being treated any differently, any less better than any non-religious institution,” Ashmore said of the scrutiny on the 100-bed building, roughly analogous to a midrise apartment complex. “Mercy Culture cannot just build anything it wants because it is a religious organization. If it sought an eight-story office building, it would still have to follow zoning laws.”

We see two problems that should have compelled a different vote. Parker told onlookers that “government at any level has no place telling any religious institution how they are permitted to live out their beliefs.” That statement is plainly, explicitly incorrect. The First Amendment protects our freedom, but it is not a free-for-all.

If any dimension of the issue is zoning-related, then this is, by definition, something the government should be compelled to uphold with clear parameters. Speaking of, our reporting shows how Mercy Culture avoided the clearer parameters of the city-recommended full-blown zoning change for building a large residence (of Justice or otherwise) on its campus.

Rather than submitting to stricter land-use scrutiny, Mercy Culture instead sought a site plan amendment, which requires less scrutiny. It described the residences as a place meant to “disciple women to spiritual healing” that would fall under church-related activities allowed under the land’s current zoning plan.

This didn’t have to be a loophole, but by approving the amendment, the mayor and council left it wide open.

Our nation’s freedom of religion doesn’t permit churches to do whatever they want in every context. And they don’t get to build whatever God instructs them to regardless of land-use rules. Otherwise, why not build a rocketship launchpad next to the sex-trafficking shelter? Don’t aliens need to hear the gospel according to Mercy Culture, too? As the good book says, “Let everything that has breath” — even the yet-to-be-discovered lifeforms — “praise the Lord.”

And if you disagree with us trying to get our praise on at Pluto? I’ll see you in court!

While we believe Parker consulted with the city attorney in good faith — she also mentioned she sought a handful of people she described as constitutional law experts but declined to name for the Star-Telegram — it gives the appearance of a city that will accept the moneyed bullying of the next special interest group. And deservedly so.

Emboldened by pinning our city into submission, Mercy Culture announced it would expand its Justice Reform from “city to city.” The ad called for applicants like Popeye’s asks for franchisees. Godspeed, Waco.

Speaking of those constituents, let’s talk about that second letter. It’s from a Fort Worth resident and mother, Jessica Soter, who believes her daughter was probably sex-trafficked across state lines. In an email she provided to the Editorial Board urging council members to vote against the proposal, she cites her extensive experience training on a variety of gender-based violence, including sex trafficking.

Soter specifically cites her dealings with Jaco Booyens, founder of Jaco Booyens Ministries, an “anti-trafficking organization led by the Holy Spirit to redeem the lives of children, victims, survivors, & those creating demand for sexual exploitation.” Booyens spoke forcefully in defense of the Justice Residences, and Pastor Heather Schott named his organization as one of Mercy Culture’s 12 partners advising the church.

Booyens “tried to help rescue my daughter in 2021 from sex trafficking and referred us to his sister’s ministry in Nashville, Tennessee,” which Soter argued “was not equipped to deal with her [daughter’s] trauma.

“In the end, they ended up threatening to put her on a bus back to Texas or to send her to a local homeless shelter,” she wrote.

Soter reflects the concerns the community has about faith-based organizations with unclear qualifications, like the one Parker argues the government has no place in regulating. “[They] are noble but completely naive about what it takes to help women detox and heal from years of trauma from their drug and sexual abuse,” Soter said.

It’s a letter you won’t hear about influencing the mayor or council’s reasoning. And you should ask yourself why.