[Brookhaven]

“Churches and clergy are ALWAYS permitted (”permitted”!) to talk about issues.”

Permitted? By who?

[Mrs. Don-o]

Well, that's why I put in the sarcastic parenthetical ("Permitted"!) -- in person, I'd be putting in big two-fingered air-quotes.

You don't need "permission," to exercise your God-given right to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion. The Constitution can acknowledge these rights, the Constitution can protect them; but the Constitution can neither "permit" nor refuse to "permit" them.

That amendment (the first) begins with the five most beautiful words in the Engligh language: "Congress shall make no law..."