So the IRS is after a Southern California church because of comments made by a visiting pastor who spoke negatively about Bush’s preemptive strategy in Iraq, 2 days prior to the 2004 election.
So let me try and get this straight without busting out any broad brushes or strawmen, or any other potential pitfalls that have me posting this in the Pit instead of GD…
States are free to legislate the display of religious documents into their courthouses and other government buildings, and the IRS is free to stretch the long arm of the Federal Government into what is said in tax-exempt pulpits anywhere in the country.
Am I alone in my bogglement as the the juxtiposition of such matters?
Like the article said “Under federal tax law, church officials can legally discuss politics, but to retain tax-exempt status they cannot endorse candidates or parties.”, and like you said, “the IRS is free to stretch the long arm of the Federal Government into what is said in tax-exempt pulpits anywhere in the country.”
So, if the church wants tax-exempt status, that’s contingent on them following the laws that come with that status, and it’s legitimate for the IRS to investigate whether or not they did so, and whether or not the sermon was just a discussion of politics, allowed under the law, or an unpermissible endorsement of Kerry, not allowed. In fact, the IRS should, in my opinion, be more aggressive into investigating political activity and endorsements in churches.
You do realize that they eventually took out the shrine to the Ten Commandments, right? Because it was declared unconstitutional?
Now, you might be upset that a preacher who denounces our fearless leader is getting investigated to see if they lose their tax-exempt status.
But what if it were the other way around? Should a church that explicitly tells people to vote for Republicans maintain a tax-exempt status?
We’ve been pretty clear in this country that if the role of your tax-exempt non-profit group is to advocate for or against particular politicians then you lose your tax-exempt status. Because otherwise every political action committee and think tank and pressure group would just register themselves as a church and get tax-exempt status.
You don’t want that, do you? You don’t want the republicans to be able to do that, do you? So if you want to forbid the republicans from doing such dastardly deeds, you have to reluctantly accept that your side should also be forbidden from doing the same thing.
I think the interesting thing is that it was an Anti Bush preacher that peaked their interest. with all of the furvor of the RR coming out strongly in favor of Bush, who knew there were even preachers who were against him. waddare the odds that’s the one that would get investigated?
I was aware of the Alabama ruling, as they’re my westerly neighbors. But if I recall correctly (which I may not be, I don’t have cites), there were various other states with similar debates ongoing that I have been less familiar with, including any outcomes.
I’m certainly not advocating lopsided partisan hypocracy. I’m just trying to reconcile some observations of some of the many conflicting perspectives that have been in the public eye of late.
The non-interference of church and state goes both ways. While a church is not allowed to endorse or oppose a political figure, the state is not allowed to endorse or oppose a recognized church. The state is not allowed to make rules about what training a person needs to be ordained or confirmed, for example.
Well, this isn’t the “one” that’s being investigated. Like the article says, the IRS investigated 90 tax exempt charities and churches in 2004, and found wrongdoing in 70% of the cases, investigated 70 in 2005, and 40 so far this year.
This one’s getting national attention because they’re not cooperating with the IRS’s order for an interview and copies of documents…because they’re going to court. In fact, the article suggests that the matter could have been settled in 2005, had the church cooperated…as it says,
“The IRS reprimanded the church in June 2005 and asked that it promise to be more careful. Church officials refused.”
I’m just staying in my comfort zone.* And the subject matter isn’t exactly known for maintaining even tempers, no matter how calmly threads start.
I suppose I could wrangle some ire at our tendancy to expend so much effort and energy toward pulling ourselves in completely opposite directions, but I’d have to get in such a long line…
the article noted a rare prior occurance when a church ran a full page newspaper ad against Clinton. This is a new policy, focusing instead on the pulpit. The article does not mention any other church/group cited, investigated, we don’t know political affiliations of the cited groups. I would be interested in that, espeically given the low number of churchs/groups investigated. The RR came out very strongly for BUsh. I find it interesting that of the small number of groups investigated, we only know of the anti BUsh one.
Well, that was a rare prior occurance when a church lost its tax exempt status. It doesn’t mean that there weren’t other disciplinary methods the IRS used, like warnings or something else. And like the part of my prior post you quoted said, the IRS investigated 200 groups in the past three years. You’re right, this does seem to be a new policy, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad one. And we only know of this anti-Bush church that’s being investigated in the article because this seems to be the only church that’s challenging the IRS in court. The other groups and churches likely cooperated with the IRS, and so we don’t know about them, or what their stances were.
I’ve got a little bogglement over the fact that the IRS thinks preachers draw up documents for the sermons they intend to deliver.
I was given to understand that the preacher who delivered the sermon in question, while formerly the pastor of that congregation, was preaching in the capacity of a visiting rector. Under such circumstances, the IRS’s admonition to “be careful” in the future strikes me as a little ominous.
When a church board wishes to invite a visiting clergyman to preach to its congregation, will they need to “vet” the preacher for dangerous political views? Will they need to insist upon prior approval over the text of the visiting preacher’s remarks?
Based upon these concerns, I find the situation smells a little like harrassment. I’d sure like to have answers to these questions, and I understand that most of the churches whose sermons reflect political opinions in direct opposition to those usually espoused in this particular church, feel much the same way.
however - we do know that the Religious RIght came out strongly for Bush.
Before I evaluated it as a policy, I would want some level of assurance that it was being utilized unilaterally, and not, say, focused on particular churches. We don’t know from this article if this was true.
But it’s not even unusual anymore for evangelical and fundamentalist churches to campaign for Bush. There are organizations that work to use churches to campaign and distribute literature promoting the Republican Party. I’m guessing, in fact, that there’s probably a lot more of them than there are churches actively campaigning against Bush. Which makes it seem like this case - where the violation wasn’t that egregious, and it was by a visiting pastor - is probably not where investigations should be taking place. Thus the concern.
If you’re talking about Judge Moore in Alabama, that was a federal ruling, so it’s not a state thing. But the SCOTUS did rule that certain displays of hte 10 Cs can be displayed as long as they’re part of a historical display that isn’t strictly religious in nature.
BTW, didn’t we already do this Pitting last year (or earlier this year)?
Well, ideally, the investigations should be taking place in both cases. But we can’t say for sure whether or not the IRS is investigating those other churches or not, because the investigations haven’t made the news. The reason this investigation has made the news is because this church is making it a news story. In other words, you don’t know that the evangelical and fundimentalist churches that campaigned for Bush weren’t investigated.
In fact, the IRS dealt with the question of whether there was political bias in their investigations, and, in 2005, the agency was investigated by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration for bias in investigations of violations. You can find the report here
The report found that while there were some problems with the IRS program to investigate violators, and while there was room for improvement by the IRS, there was no evidence of political bias.
I don’t see why you are surprised. Nixon used the IRS to harrass his political opponents. After failing to pass the repeal of the estate tax, the IRS fired half their estate tax people so that only half as many people would get audited (estate tax people uncover about $2,200 of unpaid estate taxesd/hour). Right wing religious leaders make political statements all the time (not just issues related endorsement but cnadidate related endorsement) without getting in trouble. What part of this surprises you?
