Yesterday (Sunday, September 28) various ministers around the country, organized by a tax-exempt organization called Alliance Defense Fund, joined together to defy the law. See Slevin, 33 Pastors Flout Tax Law with Political Sermons, Washington Post, Sept. 29, 2008; Sataline et al, Partisan Sunday Sermons Test IRS Tax Laws, Wall St. Journal, Sept. 29, 2008. The law says that tax-exempt organizations cannot actively campaign on behalf of a political candidate, and that includes a ban on endorsing particular political candidates from the pulpit. The ministers, and the group promoting their lawbreaking act, claim they have free speech rights to say whatever they want from the pulpit. See Alliance Defense Fund's description of the "freedom Sunday" project on its website.
By the way, the Post article above notes that Rev. Johnson condemned voting for Barack Obama as evidence of "severe moral schizophrenia" but didn't explicitly endorse John McCain. How's that for trying to have your pie and eat it, too? If you condemn one of two candidates from the pulpit, that is effectively endorsement of the other, and should be treated as such. Fran Pulto, of Calvary Chapel in Philadelphia, went further, saying that John McCain is the only candidate a Christian can vote for. See Wall Street Journal article, above. (Hasn't it ever seemed incongruous to those in the pews for these sermons that the person their pastor is so fervently supporting in the name of Christiandom has taken positions that amount to trigger-happy warmongering--singing "bomb, bomb Iran" and arguing for huge defense increases to be protected from economic woes while freezing all of the many ways that the government lends a helping hand to the poor and down-and-out?)
Many other ministers, and groups opposed to that defiance of the law, note that churches can endorse candidates if they choose to forego the benefit of tax exemption (and it is a HUGE benefit for churches that run mini-villages on their complex with claims that all of the various shopping opportunities are in furtherance of their ministries and thus not subject to UBIT -- the tax on unrelative business income). If they want taxpayers to subsidize their ministries (which we do now through tax exemption and deductions for charitable contributions), they have to accept taxpayers' desire not to support a tax exemption for churches that will intervene in elections on behalf of candidates. See, e.g., the NY Times editorial prior to the pulpit endorsements: I'm Your Paster, and I Approved This Ad, NY Times, Sept. 26, 2008; Robert King, Indianapolis Pastor to Take Part in Pulpit Freedom Sunday, IndyStar.com, Sept. 28, 2008 (noting that Indianapolis Baptist Temple gave up its tax exemption years ago and thus has every right to say whatever it wants from the pulpit). David Cobb, a First Christian Church pastor in Lynchburg, Virginia, noted that endorsing candidates also "undermines a church's ability to speak prophetically." Ray Reed, Pastors Weighing Whether to Endorse Candidates or Not, Lynchburg News & Advance, Sept. 20, 2008.
The IRS and the courts should apply the law. Churches whose pastors openly violated the ban on campaign intervention should lose their tax exemption. If the Supreme Court, dominated now by appointees of right-wing presidents, gets this case, it should not take an activist position in support of the majority's right-wing ideologies but rather it should make a clear statement about tax exemption: Tax exemption is a grant of Congress; if you defy the terms, you lose the exemption. It has nothing to do with free speech--except to the extent that ordinary American taxpayers shouldn't be forced to pay for intervention in campaigns in favor of particular candidates. Paying for speech you don't agree with is bad, but paying for groups to campaign for candidates you oppose is terrible.
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