African-American and Hispanic churches gathered at San Antonio City Hall on Tuesday to pray against a proposal to include LGBT people in the city’s non-discrimination ordinance.

Minority church leaders told KENS that if the city went forward with plans to prevent hiring discrimination based on gender identity, sexual orientation and veteran status then it would endanger their civil rights.

ADVERTISEMENT

“Because [LGBT people] have constantly tried to attach themselves as a civil rights movement, but it’s not a civil rights movement, it’s a movement of choice,” Pastor Tyrone Christian explained. “And so with us being minorities, which I went to bed last night, I was a black man, I woke up this morning, I’m a black man. And so, I can’t change my birth. Homosexuals were not born that way.”

Earlier this month, a gay veteran was booed by anti-LGBT protesters while he was trying to speak out in favor the new policies at a rally in front of City Hall.

And Council member Elisa Chan was caught on tape calling homosexuality “disgusting just to even think about.”

City leaders were expecting a large crowd to make their voices heard at the Council’s Wednesday night “Citizens to be Heard” session.

Watch this video from KENS, broadcast Aug. 27, 2013.