Christian legal team mounts challenge to the IRS gag rule of 1954, in effort to reinstate the freedom of speech that existed for the previous centuries of American history.
-- From "Ban on Political Endorsements by Pastors Targeted" by Peter Slevin, Washington Post Staff Writer 9/8/08
Declaring that clergy have a constitutional right to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting several dozen pastors to do just that on Sept. 28, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules.
The effort by the Arizona-based legal consortium is designed to trigger an IRS investigation that ADF lawyers would then challenge in federal court. The ultimate goal is to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.
"For so long, there has been this cloud of intimidation over the church," ADF attorney Erik Stanley said. "It is the job of the pastors of America to debate the proper role of church in society. It's not for the government to mandate the role of church in society."
The battle over the clergy's privileges, rights and responsibilities in the political world is not new. Politicians of all stripes court the support -- explicit or otherwise -- of religious leaders. Allegations surface every political season of a preacher crossing the line.
What is different is the Alliance Defense Fund's direct challenge to the rules that govern tax-exempt organizations. Rather than wait for the IRS to investigate an alleged violation, the organization intends to create dozens of violations and take the U.S. government to court on First Amendment grounds.
Such endorsements are prohibited by a 1954 amendment to the Internal Revenue Code that says nonprofit, tax-exempt entities may not "participate in, or intervene in . . . any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office."
-- From "Congress Refuses To Free Churches From Lyndon Johnson Gag Order" from Traditional Values Coalition, by Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, posted 10/8/02
Prior to 1954, churches and non-profits had no [IRS] restrictions on their freedom of speech or their right to speak out in favor or against political issues or candidates.
. . . In 1954, [Lyndon] Johnson was facing re-election to the Senate and was being aggressively opposed by two non-profit anti-Communist groups that were attacking Johnson’s liberal agenda. In retaliation, Johnson inserted language into the IRS code that prohibited non-profits, including churches, from endorsing or opposing candidates for political office. . . .
Organizations like Americans United for the Separation of Church and State continue to claim that this Johnson gag order must be upheld to protect “church/state separation.” This is irrational and fails to take into account the entire history of religious freedom in the United States.
Throughout our nation’s history—both before and after the American Revolution—our nation’s pastors freely spoke out on the political and moral issues of the day. It was their duty and their right under the Constitution to preach against immorality and corruption in the political and the moral realm. Historian James H. Hutson, writing in Religion and the Founding of the American Republic notes: “Preachers seemed to vie with their brethren in other colonies in arousing their congregations against George III.” And, as Hutson discovered, the House of Representatives sponsored church services in its chambers for nearly 100 years. These services only ended when convenient transportation was available to take Members of Congress home for the weekend.
It is interesting to observe that our Founding Fathers and our first elected officials didn’t have any notion of “church/state separation” so vehemently endorsed by Americans United and other modernist groups. Our Founders valued religion and wrote the First Amendment to protect the free expression of religious beliefs—and the freedom to speak out on the moral issues—including those involving politics and politicians.
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