The Washington Post is reporting on an Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) initiative to overturn the unconstitutional 1954 tax code which prohibits tax exempt organizations from endorsing political candidates.
Some people believe this prohibition is rooted in the Constitution, but is not.
From the ADF white paper on Pulpit Freedom Sunday:
The 1954 amendment, offered by then-Senator Lyndon Johnson, stated that non-profit tax-exempt entities could not “participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office.” No official reason was given for the amendment, but scholars believe that Johnson offered the amendment to restrict the speech of a private foundation that supported a political opponent. Since the amendment passed, the IRS has steadfastly maintained that any speech by churches about candidates for office, including sermons from the pulpit, can result in loss of tax exemption.
The amendment dramatically impacted churches’ exercise of First Amendment rights. Historically, churches have frequently and fervently spoken for and against candidates for office. Such sermons date from the founding of America, including sermons against Thomas Jefferson for being a deist; sermons opposing William Howard Taft as a Unitarian; and sermons opposing Al Smith in the 1928 presidential election. Churches have also been at the forefront of most of the significant societal and governmental changes in our history including ending segregation and child labor and advancing civil rights.
The Pulpit Freedom Sunday event will take place later this month on September 28. I know of at least one pastor here in South Dakota who will be participating with other pastors around the country.
In a column at TownHall.com, Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel and head of the Alliance Defense Fund’s Pulpit Initiative, explains some of the reasons why nonprofit organizations are tax exempt:
The state cannot demand the surrender of constitutional rights for a church to remain tax exempt.
Nonprofit organizations are exempted because they are not profit-makers. If citizens are already taxed on their individual incomes, taxing their participation in a voluntary organization from which they derive no monetary gain amounts to double taxation.
Churches are all the more tax exempt. Church tax exemption is not a gift, nor is it a “subsidy,” as some disingenuously contend. As the U.S. Supreme Court has noted, the power to tax involves the power to destroy, and churches have always been exempt from taxation under the principle that there is no surer way to destroy religion than to begin taxing it.
And how ironic is it that those who publicly wave the “separation of church and state” banner are the loudest voices demanding that the federal government entangle itself in the most intimate church business, namely the content of pastors’ sermons?
If free speech (and freedom of religion) come only at the cost of a government-imposed penalty, then they are not free.
The Post article also reports on some puny pastors who now want to fight this effort to restore religious freedom to America's pulpits:
Yet an opposing collection of Christian and Jewish clergy will petition the IRS today to stop the protest before it starts, calling the ADF's "Pulpit Initiative" an assault on the rule of law and the separation of church and state.
Backed by three former top IRS officials, the group also wants the IRS to determine whether the nonprofit ADF is risking its own tax-exempt status by organizing an "inappropriate, unethical and illegal" series of political endorsements.
"As religious leaders, we have grave concerns about the ethical implications of soliciting and organizing churches to violate core principles of our society," the clergy wrote in an advance copy of their claim obtained by The Washington Post.
No, the 1954 politically-motivated Johnson law is the assault on the rule of law (the Constitutional prohibition against the infringement of religious expression) and the separation of church and state.
And while these religious leaders appear fearful of "violating" the "core principles of our society" which have been in place for the last 54 of the 232-year history of the United States, they seem to have no fear of the God they claim to serve.
Morality and God's truth supersede any so-called "core principles" of moral cowardice, real or perceived.
This action by the ADF and participating pastors is long overdue. For too long the people of the United States have allowed left-and-right unconstitutional infringements of our constitutional rights.
If we wish to remain a free people, we must be about the business of returning to a constitutional government.
2 comments:
Bravo! Lyndon Johnson was a creep, and challenging his amendment, only too eagerly "enshrined" into law by the liberal, God & country-hating left wing in America, is long overdue. ADF, we're going to send you another check for this courageous stand. Dan & Marty, Lubbock, Texas
First, let's be careful with name-calling, esp. if we call ourselves a Christian. Second, we need look no farther than the actual words of the First Amendment to the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law...prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]." The 1954 tax code amendment seems to be clearly unconstitutional, because it prohibits the free exercise of religion, as at least some would define it. This bad law needs to be challenged, to the Supreme Court if necessary.
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