The Internal Revenue Service has warned a prominent liberal church that it could lose its tax-exempt status because of an anti-war sermon a guest preacher gave on the eve of the 2004 presidential election, according to church officials.
So…enlisting churches to help with the re-election of the president is okay.
Giving a sermon about the fundamental tenets of Christianity — “Thou shalt not kill” and all that — is not?
I’m not sure about The Middle America Chronicle’s assertion that as long as a church “doesn’t specifically say “Vote Republican†or “Elect Democrats,†it shouldn’t be intimidated by the IRS,” but certainly a church’s tax-exempt status shouldn’t be called into question simply for preaching a sermon that extrapolates values to real world issues.
The sermon is archived on the church’s website. It is certainly critical of Bush, and does say things like, “When you go into the voting booth on Tuesday, take with you all that you know about Jesus, the peacemaker. Take all that Jesus means to you. Then vote your deepest values.” At no point, though, does it actually endorse Kerry or any part of his “plan”.
Clearly I’m not an expert on tax-exempt rules, and I am probably a bit biased in this particular case, but I think this is okay. It’s certainly a far cry from paying for an advertisement, which the Post cites as an example of activity conducted by a church that previously lost its status. And I’m sure there were much more blatant endorsements coming from less prominent pulpits that Sunday.
I think of the IRS much in the same way I think of the police — if they want to find a problem, they can.
I’m not an expert on the rules for tax-exempt status either, but, according to the AP story, the church has a problem because not-for-profit organizations are “prohibited from intervening in political campaigns and elections.” To me, ANY sermon alone shouldn’t constitute intervening in an election. The federal government should not have to ability to regulate speech in that way. Intervening, in my opinion, means the church would have had to donate money to candidate, purchase campaign advertisements or something else to that effect.
I feel like the church probably pissed off the Bush administration in some way, so now they are getting investigated by the IRS (I don’t have any proof of this, but I wouldn’t bet against it). I doubt the IRS actually will strip the church of its not-for-profit status, but, if it does, I think the church would have an excellent reason to file suit. And that’s a case I could support.
That is total bullshit. As far as I’m concerned, tax exempt has nothing to do with the words you say. If you are a church, all you deal with is words. You tell people how to live, not to sin, etc. That is what a church does, provide values. I personally think that not being a warmonger is a good value to have, even if I’m not a religious person. Even if I wanted to be at war 24×7, I’m not going to tell a church they can’t give their opinion. Freedom of speech comes to mind…
Funny how it’s “no political speech in church”, but “intelligent design in class” seems to be ok. Talk about misuse of tax dollars.