What I find unbelievable is that you’re seeing outrage in the posts to this thread, especially outrage out of proportion to what’s occurred in previous threads on this topic. Again, who did you mean by “your” when you were talking about “your outrage”?
How in the world does that observation exaggerate the extent that the position was advocated? It says that “people on this very board have advocated”. That’s literal truth if I can find two people who said it.
And of what relevance is “seven posts”? My question was directed to the OP; I could have posted it as the second post in the thread without changing it one iota.
I was referring to the OP’s position, which is, by inference, against the IRS tactics he refers to. I agree we’re not discussing a foaming-at-the-mouth rant, and perhaps “outrage” is a loaded word here. Still, the OP clearly takes a negative position on the IRS tactics. If the stopper here is “outrage,” I happily withdraw it and substitute “ire”.
What’s good for one is good for the other. If a church promotes political causes or partisan agendas it should lose its tax status, no matter what side of the argument it took. As it stands now, with the noise from pro-war, antigay, pro ID “churches” not getting slapped, this IRS action against the anti war church should be shut down as being openly partisan and a misuse of power. Why? Because it is not being equally applied to churches that do parrot partisan crap.
I think we’re missing some crucial facts concerning this case:
What was the source of the IRS investigation in the first place? Was the IRS out there looking for such violation, or were they responding to specific complaints from paritioners?
Did the surmon mention either candidate by name, even if it didn’t actually endorse either candidate directly? I see a big difference between saying “The wealthy should pay a larger share of the tax burden in this coutnry” and “President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy have made the poor worse off in this country”.
Overall, though, I agree with Diogenes– let’s get rid of the tax expempt status of Churches and we won’t have this problem. Of course, that has about a 0% chance of actually hapenning…
Did the people on this board who advocated this work for or otherwise professionally represent the IRS?
I seriously doubt “Church’s position pisses off Message Board posters” is quite synonymous with “INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE threatens church for its political views”.
Nixon used the IRS as a personal attack dog for his enemies. I wonder who else is doing this… hmmm… could it be…
And of what relevance is “seven posts”? My question was directed to the OP; I could have posted it as the second post in the thread without changing it one iota.
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I didn’t realize your post was direct soley at the OP. Even still, its a ridiculous point becuase Fear Itself is not required to defend each of his positions in every possible thread. The fact that he didn’t do so in a previous thread (which you haven’t even shown he didn’t) has no bearing on whether this thread is valid. If you want to accuse him of a hypocritcal position perhaps, and I ask this in all seriousness, provide a link supporting your position.
Lets try this again, if any passing mod wants to kill my previous post that would be great.
I didn’t realize your post was direct soley at the OP. Even still, its a ridiculous point becuase Fear Itself is not required to defend each of his positions in every possible thread. The fact that he didn’t do so in a previous thread (which you haven’t even shown he didn’t) has no bearing on whether this thread is valid. If you want to accuse him of a hypocritcal position perhaps, and I ask this in all seriousness, you should provide a link supporting your position.
I believe the most recent person around here to talk about IRS challenges to the tax-exempt status of certain churches because of political lobbying was me over in this thread, and I have no problems at all standing by what I said then:
And in that thread, I gave some examples of churches that have in fact lost their tax-free status:
As for the questions asked in the OP, I have no real problem with the current guidelines for church political activity (from the same link):
To know whether the IRS is abusing its mission in investigating the church in the OP’s link, we would need to know what the actual policy message was in the controversial sermon, and whether such advocacy formed more than an “insubstantial” part of the church’s activities.
Kimstu: I don’t see how the example of an anti-SSM sermon is contrary to the current guidlines. Are you saying they violate those guidelines, or are (were) you advocating expanding thost guidelines to cover policy related topics as well?
You won’t see him provide a link, because that would expose the weakness of his argument.
In this thread, I called for the IRS to cancel the tax exempt status of churches who were actively campaigning for George Bush in the 2004 election. There is a vast difference between using the resources of a tax exempt church to organize a campaign, and expressing anti-war views from the pulpit. I see no hypocrisy in repeating my call for those churches to be sanctioned by the IRS, while at the same time being “outraged” at the persecution of a church based solely of its moral views about war.
If **Bricker ** thinks he has a leg to stand on, I am sure he will provide cites and arguments to support his claim that I have somehow been inconsistent.
So the political activism I was talking about in that thread wasn’t just “an anti-SSM sermon”, it was collecting petition signatures for an anti-SSM amendment to the state constitution. Yes, AFAICT, that is definitely “contrary to the current guidelines” for limiting political lobbying on the part of churches.
As I pointed out, though, even that kind of overtly and specifically political campaigning would not result in the loss of a church’s tax-free status, as long as they weren’t doing too much of it.
Had the sermon been on one of these issues or another, it would be far less problematic: it would be as if a Baptist preacher railed against the Papacy from the pulpit, or against the Nanny State from the pulpit. I’d think that preacher was a git, but I wouldn’t call for his specific church to have their tax status pulled.
But if the Baptist preacher, on the day before the election, railed against John Kerry’s Papist views and against the liberal Nanny State, I’d say they crossed a line.
This church was, on the day before a major election, railing against two policies whose only common theme was their advocacy by one of the candidates. I’m having trouble seeing how that doesn’t qualify as campaigning.
Bricker, I appreciate the clarification. I still think you’re being too quick to imply hypocrisy, though. Hypocrisy, like racism, ought to be something you accuse folks of only when there’s very strong evidence; neither should be a charge that you throw out at the start of a debate in hopes that it’ll stick.
[ul][li]arranging for pastors to hold voter-registration drives[/li][li]talking to various religious groups about the campaign[/li][li]holding a “citizenship Sunday” at church[/li][/ul]
And suggested that this put the church’s tax-exempt status in jeopardy.
Now, you’re OK with a church, on the eve of the election, speaking specifically against the Iraq war and the Bush tax cuts.
I disagree LHoD, although its impossible to tell without knowing exactly what the preacher said. If its something along the lines of “The Rich should help the poor and our tax structure should reflect that” then I think thats clearly on the safe side. If he had tacked on “and Bush’s tax cuts do the opposite of that and should be opposed” then I agree he is treading towards dangerous territory. Its impossible to preach about any social issues without directly or indirectly referencing government policy. If preachers can’t speak out against war and economic equality then you have removed two pressing moral issues for them to preach about. I think that we should get rid of tax-exempt status for churches but if we are going to have it I think we ought to err on the side of allowing pastors to preach and only take action when it clearly steps over that line.
The other thing that you are neglecting to mention is that these churches in Fear Itself’s previous thread were being directed directly by the Bush campaign. The preachers is this case (presumably) gave his own opinion. I think that is a major difference becuase it crosses the line from pastor expressing his opinion to shill for a canidate. Its the same thing with providing material or financial aid directly to a canidate. It is no longer a church expressing its opinion but an organization campaigning for a canidate.
Seeing as he didn’t cite speaking out as a canidates views as grounds for losing tax exempt in the first thread I fail to see the inconsistency. His opinion, if I may take the liberty of summarizing, direct collusion between a political part and a church is not ok while a preacher preaching about a topic that pastors have been speaking of for millenia is ok. Both are valid and not contradictory.
