In the days before the 2004 election, the country was abuzz with discussion about various Catholic churches that had indicated they would refuse communion to candidates for office who supported pro-choice positions. Several bishops went even further, and lectured church members that they might jeopardize their religious community if they voted to support any politician that would not uphold church doctrine on abortion. Bishop Sheridan in Colorado was perhaps the best known of these, because of a letter that he sent out stating his position that congregants would be denied communion if they supported pro-choice candidates.
For the letter itself, see here. For a CBS News story about the letter, see here. For reaction to Bishop Sheridan's letter, especially in Denver and surrounding areas, see here.
At the time, various people raised the question whether such partisan propagandizing from the pulpit amounted to support for a candidate of the type that should result in denial of tax-exempt status for the religious organization. Some thought the bishops too closely identified a particular position with a particular candidate and urged parishioners to vote against anyone with that position had overstepped the bounds. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, here, publicly called for an IRS investigation of the matter, insisting that the letter was "code" for calling on Catholics to vote for Bush instead of Kerry.
As far as the public knows, the IRS took no action on this issue. Letters from the IRS questioning tax-exempt status (or other correspondence in connection with tax exempt status) are not open to the public, so it is impossible to assess how evenhandedly the IRS enforces the anti-partisan requirements for tax-exempt status.
The Los Angeles Times has revealed, in this story, that the IRS did issue a letter questioning the activities of another church--in this case, the All Saints Episcopal Church, a liberal church with views that tend to parallel those of the Democratic Party rather than the Republican Party. The rector of the church revealed the letter from the IRS on Sunday, noting that it related to an October 31, 2004 sermon at the church. The following describes the sermon.
"Regas, who from the pulpit opposed both the Vietnam War and 1991's Gulf War, imagined Jesus participating in a political debate with then-candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. Regas said that "good people of profound faith" could vote for either man, and did not tell parishioners whom to support.
But he criticized the war in Iraq, saying that Jesus would have told Bush, "Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine. Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster." "
What is the role of a religious institution in a democracy? For adherents of a particular faith, the religious institution serves an expressive function and provides support in their pursuit of a moral life through that faith's precepts. For leaders within a faith, the religious institution and its constitutive events provide an opportunity to instill in followers a better understanding of the church's moral precepts and to illustrate a life following those principles for the rest of the world to see. It is difficult to see how the sermon described above could be viewed as anything other than such leaders and faithful engaging in a "teaching moment." The leader used the freshness of the presidential debates to reiterate a moral lesson on the value of peace and the tragedy of war. As the article notes, the church's tax attorney commented in an October letter that:
"It seems ludicrous to suggest that a pastor cannot preach about the value of promoting peace simply because the nation happens to be at war during an election season."
A listserve for tax professors was busy today with commentary on the news of the IRS letter to the church. Most thought the IRS letter represented an overbroad application of the prohibition against religious institutions' support of a particular candidate: the sermon about what Jesus would do exemplifies the ability of churches to point out underlying principles at stake during election disputes without thereby being seen to endorse a particular candidate. And it seems surprising that this sermon would cause such a reaction, if the letter from Bishop Sheridan did not. (Again, we cannot know for sure whether there was a similar letter in that case, because such letters are revealed only by the recipients at their discretion.)
But as several participants in the listserv discussion noted, tax-exemption for religious institutions invites problems. It is not easy to know what behavior should be protected by freedom of religion and freedom of speech, in any context. So we have had long debates about prayers in public schools over the PA systems or at football games, by administrators or by students voluntarily. We have struggled with whether a Christmas tree is a religious symbol or a pagan one, whether a creche in a holiday display with a menorah or with Santa's reindeer carries the same religious connotation as a creche standing alone.
I have strong views on these matters, as most people seem to have on matters of religion, tax, and the state. First, I consider it imperative that the polity accommodate broad ranges of religious views in order to permit individuals to mature in their own views and with respect towards others' views. To accomplish this, no one's views can be seen as advocated by the State, and no one's views can be seen as disadvantaged by the State.
Second, I think it is clear that you cannot take religion out of a religious symbol, such as a creche, merely by having it near a red-nosed reindeer, anymore than you can fund any religious institutions' activities with tax money and claim to be supporting only the purported non-sectarian pursuits of those institutions. After all, there would be no reason for having a creche, in any self-respecting Christian church's view, unless you intended it as a reminder of the birth of Jesus as a religious event. And there would be no other money for the church's religious pursuits, without the money being freed up from its non-sectarian pursuits.
For those reasons, I find the Supreme Court's cases in this area unhelpful in ensuring an appropriate line between church and state. It would have been better--and more in line with the intended constitutional protection of religion (avoiding government entanglement with religion in ways that may promote one and persecute another) and from religion (ensuring the freedom of American citizens to profess any religion or no religion and to be free from discrimination on account of their choices)--to disallow all displays of religious icons on public property, no matter what the purported motive.
Tax-exemption adds another layer to the problem of church and state, as noted by others in the listserve debate. An organization that is exempt from taxation receives an advantage that other organizations do not receive. If religious institutions' activities slip over into partisan support of a candidate, the tax deduction for charitable contributions has essentially provided a way for the tax system to further that candidacy. Furthermore, since charitable contributions are useful only to the minority of Americans who do not take the standard deduction and since those are generally the wealthiest Americans who have considerable amounts of charitable contributions to deduct at higher marginal rates at which the tax benefit is more significant, charitable deductions for religious contributions primarily provide benefits to the wealthy. These are a few of the reasons why some argued that the IRS should never enforce the prohibition against partisan support of candidates and others argued against tax exemption for churches (along with deduction of contributions for donors) as being incompatible with freedom of religion from government intervention.
The debate about religious institutions and taxation has gone on for a long time and likely will continue. It should not be rejected merely for that reason. It is a worthy debate that engages many of the issues important for the survival of democratic egalitarianism. Whichever position one takes in that debate, however, it appears that IRS enforcement of the prohibition against support of political candidates is simply off target in the case of the sermon at All Saints Episcopal Church.
Recent Comments