God, Don’t Bless the IRS - How some churches disregard toothless tax laws

[BridgeTheGap]

American churches enjoy nonprofit, tax-exempt status with a few important conditions, and one of them is that they can’t endorse political candidates or otherwise get involved in political campaigns. But the Internal Revenue Service is failing to enforce this provision, reports The Humanist (Jan.-Feb. 2011), even as some pastors openly defy the law by holding annual “Pulpit Freedom” events in which they deliver explicitly political sermons.

The main force behind the Pulpit Freedom events is the Alliance Defense Fund, a right-wing lawyer group that, The Humanist reports, “has made no secret of the fact that it’s itching for a court fight—all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.”

One of its main foes in the battle is Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a nonpartisan group that frequently files complaints with the IRS about brazen church politicking.

“If houses of worship were allowed to engage freely in partisan political activity,” The Humanist writes, “Americans United foresees the day when a large church or a group of churches working together could form a political machine that dominates a community’s political life.”

Read more: http://www.utne.com/Politics/Churches-Flout-Tax-Law-Separation-Church-And-State.aspx#ixzz1OEn6Q1yq

[RC]

1. And with the belief of way too many that the Constitution protects the church from Government, but

not the government from the church, burning at the stake and witchcraft hangings could be common place again. Gotta enough room in the church basement for a torture chamber?

[KT2000]

2. Sermons that preach

hatred of President Obama are not uncommon, at least in my community. I guess they made it religious by declaring he is the devil.

[skepticscott]

3. They may be itching to take this

to the Supreme Court, but it would be a monumentally stupid move. Which, considering we're talking about religious fundamentalists, probably makes it about even money that they'll try. This issue is a dead-bang loser, even with the current Supreme Court, and having the principle laid down explicitly by the higher court in the land would make it much harder to skirt and even flaunt the law, or to paint themselves as the victims of the free speech nazis.