Alert the Media – Ed Agrees with the Religious Right
This is probably going to come as a shock to my regular readers, but I’m going to agree with Pat Buchanan and the Worldnutdaily. In Pat’s most recent column, he endorses a bill in front of Congress called the Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act of 2005. The bill would change the Internal Revenue Code to allow ministers and other church officials to endorse candidates and take positions on partisan political issues without risking their tax exempt status. I agree with this and think the bill should pass, for several reasons.
First, the rules as written currently are so vague that they are prone to abuse. What precisely is prohibited and what precisely is allowed for charitable organizations to do is very much a matter of interpretation. As the organization pushing this bill say in their FAQ:
For purposes of IRC Section 501(c)(3), legislative activities and political activities are two different things, and are subject to two different sets of rules. The latter is an absolute bar. An IRC Section 501(c)(3) organization may not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office. Whether an organization is engaging in prohibited political campaign activity depends upon all the facts and circumstances in each case. For example, organizations may sponsor debates or forums to educate voters. But if the forum or debate shows a preference for or against a certain candidate, it becomes a prohibited activity. The motivation of an organization is not relevant in determining whether the political campaign prohibition has been violated. Activities that encourage people to vote for or against a particular candidate, even on the basis of non-partisan criteria, violate the political campaign prohibition of IRC Section 501(c)(3).
Political candidates of all stripes give speeches at churches all the time, especially during a campaign. Is that prohibited? What if the church only allows those of one party to speak and not another? That happens all the time too.
Second, it would end the fiction that churches are not endorsing candidates. Churches and ministers do endorse candidates currently, they just do it while painstakingly holding to the letter of the law to protect themselves. Democrats typically speak in front of liberal churches, while Republicans typically speak in front of conservative churches. Is giving a forum to only one candidate an endorsement? It seems obvious that it ought to be viewed as one, but it’s generally not seen as one. So why not end this fiction? Let churches endorse candidates if they choose because everyone knows that they’re doing it anyway, just with the dishonest pretense of not doing it.
Third, the law as currently written provides too much entanglement between church and state. It requires that the IRS analyze sermons and pastoral communications to insure that they don’t include some technical violation of a very subjective set of rules. Do we really want that kind of oversight? Do we really want the government monitoring speech in churches to parse subjective statements of a political nature? I don’t think we do.
Fourth, I don’t believe the restrictions are constitutional, at least not strictly so. We place a very high priority on protecting speech, especially political speech and especially speech in churches. In order to justify a law that sets restrictions on what may or may not be said in a sermon, the law must meet the highest and most strict level of scrutiny we can apply. And I simply do not believe there is a compelling state interest that comes close to justifying such limitations in this case. If you can think of any interest that would meet such strict scrutiny, I’d like to hear it. But since, as I said before, the rules are subjective enough as it is to allow churches to give de facto endorsements, there can’t possibly be enough of a harm associated with de jure endorsements to justify giving government the power to punish churches for the explicitly political speech of ministers.
8 Responses to “Alert the Media – Ed Agrees with the Religious Right”
Republican Congressman Walter Jones, representing North Carolina’s 3rd District, has introduced legislation (H.R. 235 – the Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act of 2005) to protect churches (501-3c corporations) from anxiety that the IRS might take away their tax exempt status if they get to political. An unjust law introduced in 1945 by then-Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson is the basis for pastor’s fears.
This is good legislation and deserves support. Christian churches in early America, especially after The Great Awakening of 1740, had a great deal to do with establishing the sentiment that led to the Revolutionary War and the ousting of the British. In fact, until sometime in the 1940s, if a man wanted to run for office he tossed his hat in the ring at church. If the hat came sailing back he might as well forget it.
Nonetheless, I ask why Christian ministries and Congressmen are not also sponsoring legislation to restore 1st Amendment rights of free speech, press and assembly for all Americans.
The founders believed that our Creator gave every individual certain unalienable RIGHTS but instead of unrestricted and equal ‘individual rights†we now participate in our political process through a system of “limited collective rights” (a socialist idea). But first we are required to “create a corporation” (a fascist idea). Thereby We the People trade rights endowed by our CREATOR for privileges licensed by GOVERNMENT!
http://amendment10.tripod.com/religiousright.wmv
Your post was the whole point of my master of divinity thesis.
That said, I think that if the change is made, churches will gravitate one way or the other, such that a great many Christians would choose to belong to churches that stayed farther away from politics. Many United Methodist churches may have one preacher who is a Democrat and another who is a Republican.
Despite my own strong liberal views, I’ve come to doubt the utility of strong church political involvement, even as I still defend it. I don’t use the pulpit in any way to suggest how people should vote. I’ve never endorsed or opposed war from the pulpit, I’ve never been for or against minimum wage from the pulpit. Within a year of writing the paper, although not changing my view per se, I came to the conclusion that I can best share the Gospel by sharing the principles of justice as I understand them and letting people decide for themselves.
I don’t avoid controversial issues. I’ve preached on just war theory. Prior to invading Iraq, I preached two sermons in which I laid out several points for and against the various positions. To try to ensure that my personal bias didn’t rule, I distributed written copies of a pro-war article by United Methodist Donald Sensing. Away from the pulpit, if people ask me who I voted for for president, I tell them. There are times when I do share my personal perspective, such as my opposition to capital punishment.
In my Palm Sunday sermon, I highlighted Christ’s humility and centered the message on Terri Schiavo. I made no endorsement of either position. I invited people to search Scripture, their hearts, to pray and then to decide.
Ironically, it was much of what became the religous right that protested liberal church involvement against the Vietnam war and for civil rights.
Great idea.
I’ve already walked out of TWO churches whose “ministers” practiced political proselytization. In one of the churches, I had been attending for 6 months, and had been singing in their most excellent choir.
I’d hope that the political churches would be more up front about it, so I don’t have to waste 6 months of my life going to a church before I find out that they’re not worshipping God, they’re worshipping earthly power.
One of the major attackers of free speech is the current President. Any church worthy of being one would not give a hoot about their tax status and they don’t. Denominations, however, do care about material things a lot more than they care about the contents of their book.
The simple answer is for no religious institutions to have tax exempt status.
this removes any complexity, and does not in the least harm free speech. it just stops some types of content-of-speech having special status not given to others.
charities should be for the public benefit. how can both
a) a church which advocates [a candidate who supports] criminal penalties for homosexual activity and
b) a church which argues against [a candidate who supports] it
both be acting for the public benefit? why should their argument have different status from someone suggesting you should buy a particular brand of trainers? nobody likes tax, but the latter debate seems more worthy of a tax-break to me.
As far as free speech goes the Republicans have done harm to the concept via their latest “reform” having to do with the robust speech needed around election times. The proposed reform here is quite timid allowing speech but only so long as it is not disseminated beyond the church service. WTF in this day and age? Why be timid, why not unravel the republican pile of crap that those unworthies had hoped the SC would?
Put on the Full Armor
A Response to Coral Ridge Ministries Request For Money to Promote Religious Exception to Campaign Finance Laws
You have put on part of the armor and are fighting with part of your strength, and it is a battle you will loose for us all!
Would you encourage your Christian flock to pick and choose the parts of the Bible they are comfortable with and only honor those parts? How can you defend freedom of religion and not freedom of speech, press and assembly as well?
Your broadcasts rightly warn of the dangers of activist judges and their anti-Christian judgments, but the answer is not raising money for a PR campaign to influence the selection of conservative judges. Law means fixed, and the role of judges, as you said on your TV show, is to interpret the law and not write it. Your folly is to mount a Trojan horse campaign in full view of the enemy! Oh please, evil sirs, do not ignore the law and oppress me anymore.
Existing Congressmen and Senators are enablers of the federal court s government by tyranny. By making a circus of advise and consent and insisting on nominating candidates who share their conservative or liberal agendas, our lawful representatives divest themselves of their responsibility for making laws that conform to the Constitution and are approved by the represented. We need Congress and the Senate to reign in the Activist courts and reassert their authority to write laws. To force our elected representatives to be accountable to their oaths of office, We the People must be able to hire and fire.
To make this happen, we must eliminate so called Campaign reforms that practically guarantee incumbents will be re-elected and that no new political party can supplant the Democrats or Republicans, despite the fact that over 1/3rd of voters are now registered independent. When the legislative branch passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, many among them thought it would fail to pass constitutional muster and that the Supreme Court would overturn at least parts of it. George Bush questioned BCRA s Constitutionality but still signed it into law.
If you study the history of Federal Campaign Laws, you will find they are a recent oppression of the Bill of Rights. There were not federal campaign regulations until 1907 and no enforcement mechanism until 1975. This is because there are no federal elections, only elections for federal office held in the individual states. The tenth Amendment grants authority to regulate elections to the states and the people.
We the People currently have a friend on the six member board of the Federal Election Commission in the person of Professor Bradley Smith. I believe it was Senator Ted Kennedy who objected to Mr. Smith s appointment, as Bradley Smith is strident in his objection to the FEC and believes it is unconstitutional. Senator Kennedy questioned whether Mr. Smith could be relied on to perform his duties given his belief. Mr. Smith assured him he would abide with the law, even though he objects to it.
Mr. Bradley Smith s situation is a metaphor for Coral Ridge s approach to fixing our broken Republic. When Mr. Smith s tenure is up or his voice is not the in the majority, the Constitution no longer applies! We need to restore the broken system, not apply a band-aid.
While there is still a chance, put on the full armor, defend the whole 1st Amendment and let s leave it all out on the field!
I don’t think churches should get directly involved in politics by endorsing candidates. But I think pastors should have the right to preach their interpretation of Scripture for or against war or gay marriage, for equality and justice, against abortion, etc., and even to suggest that their church members vote along those lines. A lot of pastors have been scared away from doing that.