Posted on 07/27/2006 8:20:43 AM PDT by xzins
Five years ago, I wrote about threats made by the Internal Revenue Service against conservative churches for supposedly engaging in politicking. Today, the IRS is again attempting to chill free speech, sending notices to more than 15,000 non-profit organizations—including churches—regarding its new crackdown on political activity.
But what exactly constitutes political activity? What if a member of the clergy urges his congregation to work toward creating a pro-life culture, when an upcoming election features a pro-life candidate? What if a minister admonishes churchgoers that homosexuality is sinful, when an initiative banning gay marriage is on an upcoming ballot? Where exactly do we draw the line, and when does the IRS begin to violate the First amendment’s guarantee of free exercise of religion?
I agree with my colleague Walter Jones of North Carolina that the political views of any particular church or its members are none of the government’s business. Congressman Jones introduced legislation that addresses this very serious issue of IRS harassment of churches engaging in conservative political activity. This bill is badly needed to end the IRS practice of threatening certain politically disfavored faiths with loss of their tax-exempt status, while ignoring the very open and public political activities of other churches. While some well-known leftist preachers routinely advocate socialism from the pulpit, many conservative Christian and Jewish congregations cannot present their political beliefs without risking scrutiny from the tax collector.
The supposed motivation behind the ban on political participation by churches is the need to maintain a rigid separation between church and state. However, the First amendment simply prohibits the federal government from passing laws that establish religion or prohibit the free exercise of religion. There certainly is no mention of any "separation of church and state," yet lawmakers and judges continually assert this mythical doctrine.
The result is court rulings and laws that separate citizens from their religious beliefs in all public settings, in clear violation of the free exercise clause. Our Founders never envisioned a rigidly secular public society, where people must nonsensically disregard their deeply held beliefs in all matters of government and politics. They certainly never imagined that the federal government would actively work to chill the political activities of some churches.
Speech is speech, regardless of the setting. There is no legal distinction between religious expression and political expression; both are equally protected by the First amendment. Religious believers do not drop their political opinions at the door of their place of worship, nor do they disregard their faith at the ballot box. Religious morality will always inform the voting choices of Americans of all faiths.
The political left, however, seeks to impose the viewpoint that public life must be secular, and that government cannot reflect morality derived from faith. Many Democrats, not all, are threatened by strong religious institutions because they want an ever-growing federal government to serve as the unchallenged authority in our society. So the real motivation behind the insistence on a separation of church and state is not based on respect for the First amendment, but rather on a desire to diminish the influence of religious conservatives at the ballot box.
The Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom must not depend on the whims of IRS bureaucrats. Religious institutions cannot freely preach their beliefs if they must fear that the government will accuse them of "politics." We cannot allow churches to be silenced any more than we can allow political dissent in general to be silenced. Free societies always have strong, independent institutions that are not afraid to challenge and criticize the government.
Ha! The fact that they have to choose which of the IRS classifications they want to be in shows their lack of freedom. This argument reminds me of something I ran across on DU the other day.
In my opinion, a true lack of freedom is the government requiring you to fit into one of their classifications. The "give-up-your-property" group or the "give-up-free-speech" group. In either case you lose and the government wins. That's slavery.
Preaching politics is God's work?
Actually, they still to this day enjoy tax exemption without having to formally apply for it (unlike non-church organizations). But they must take formal steps to abandon it, if they wish.
Unfortunately , too many churches have forgotten which master they should serve.
Precisely. Bullseye.
Excellent comment.
The free exercise provision of the 1st amendment means they cannot curtail my religion, and taking some of my worship money given to God certainly curtails my religion.
If I give the offering plate 10 bucks for the church charities, and only 9 bucks gets there, then they have curtailed my worship of God via charity by $1.
My "exercise" was not "free." It was "curtailed/limited/lessened" by official government act."
I could case less about a mortgage deduction, besides it isn't that big a deal when you are only getting it times your tax rate. If it was a deduction from taxes it might be meaningfull.
Personally it means nothing since I haven't had one in 20 years after I paid off the only I ever had and any property since then has been for cash.
Unless the candidate is a liberal Democrat. Extra points if the church is predominantly black.
The IRS is selectively enforces their rules to muzzle conservatives, pure and simple.
Right on the money! (no pun intended)
Excellant point! And one that needs making over and over again until it sinks in!
100% agreed ... and the economy of the country and the taxpayers as well will benefit financially also.
There is no revoking involved. Churches have always been considered tax free, with or without any tax exempt status. This would be a new thing and something that would be at odds with the establishment clause and certainly the concept of Separation of Church and State. Being tax exempt has always been an assumed right of the church since the beginning.
I misused "their" in post #47. It is annoying. It has me regularly apologizing. My typing gets ahead of my internal grammar checker, and I see it after I hit the "post" button.
:>)
I'm not going to dignify this idiocy...
Then you're barking up the wrong tree. I don't happen to agree with the IRS regs. I just don't get too worked up about them because no one is "railroaded" into anything.
And I also don't support Jones' bill because it applies only to churches. Include all non-profits (NRA, Planned Parenthood, etc) and that would be different.
It is a fact that preachers must be free to speak about anything.
As mentioned in a previous post, they are following the example of their religion: Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, Hosea, other prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, etc.
Down through history it remains true: Luther, Hus, Wickliffe, Assissi, etc.
It is my religion to say from the pulpit: "Abortion is Sin because it's murder. John Kerry supports abortion. Don't support John Kerry."
Jesus would say far more cutting than that. He'd tell John Kerry a parable about a rich, inconsiderate guy that ended up in the burning fire of hell.
"I don't think clergymen should be preaching politics from the pulpit. "
And I don't think the IRS should be able to stifle free speech under color of governmental tax laws.
There are many organizations that should not be taxed at all and that could be done even more effectively under the provisions of the FairTax - and with far less punitive measures.
They could speak, ventriloquate, or fart as much as they want. They might have to start paying taxes, though.
So, then, you think others should have their speech limited because they take the mortgage deduction? I mean, after all, they are getting a government benefit, so they should shut up about the government.
Is that what you're saying?
"Preaching politics is God's work?"
As sure as a prophet ever preached against a king or a kingdom, it is.
There is. The right of people to freely associate for their own noncommercial purposes should not be infringed by taxation. The monies volunteered for the purposes and goals of the org are speech. Everyone knows the meaning of "BS walks and money talks".
What most folks don't get is that Freedom and the 1st Amendment's prohibition on infringement of Free speech goes beyond protecting simple words spoken in a closet. It covers association of folks with similar ideas and goals. It prohibits the govm't from ever promoting and sanctioning one groups goals and ideas over another's. The only valid justification for doing so is to identify and sanction rights violations.
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