"September 27, 2008
I’m Your Pastor, and I Approved This Ad
Call it an act of faith or call it a political ploy, but 33 ministers plan to endorse a presidential candidate from their Sunday pulpits in defiance of federal law.
The ministers and the conservative group organizing them know they are breaking a 54-year-old law barring tax-exempt organizations from using their sheltered status to support a political candidate. They want to be taken to court, quickly, in hopes of overturning it.
The pastors complain that the statute limits their free expression. We take any challenge to free speech very seriously, but this is not a challenge to free speech. This is about protecting the collection plate while using the power of the pulpit to influence elections. Shepherds are entirely free to tell their flocks whom to vote for. They just cannot expect taxpayers to subsidize turning their churches into campaign offices.
The tax code mandate they are challenging has protected the separation of church and state by denying tax deductions for contributions to charitable organizations that engage in secular campaigning.
The ministers haven’t announced their preferences, although Senator John McCain is expected to be favored. Senator Barack Obama has blurred church-state lines in promising more subsidies for social programs run by religious-based groups. But Mr. McCain has gone much farther, proclaiming America to be “a Christian nation.”
A (tax-exempt) consortium of Christian lawyers that presses conservative causes — the Alliance Defense Fund — has organized the ministers’ protest as Pulpit Freedom Sunday. They argue that the tax code restricts their right to be “talking to their congregations about biblical issues related to candidates and elections.”
Taxpayers of any faith should see this as an election-year gambit to dash the pillar of church-state separation. Other clergy, mindful of being spiritual not political ministers, have organized to say no thanks to Pulpit Freedom Sunday. We expect the courts and the Internal Revenue Service to say those preachers are in the right."
Reading this article, you have to understand what the law entailed. It basically says that tax exempt organizations (such as churches) cannot protect their money from the IRS while still associating the church with a candidate. This law has been in effect for 54 years and this is the first time it's being broken. The author's opinion is not exactly easiest t0 find, but it's entirely appropriate with the way she shows her argument. She starts with the unbiased facts, then moves on to give her opinion. She obviously does not agree with the church thinking it is an issue of free speech. She believes that an issue of free speech would be banning them from preaching about politics, which the law does not ban. To make this easier for the reader to understand, she uses a metaphor very well. She says, "Shepherds are entirely free to tell their flocks whom to vote for. They just cannot expect taxpayers to subsidize turning their churches into campaign offices. " This explains the they can tell the church members to vote for one candidate, but they cant take advantage of their not having to pay taxes and make their churches into a campaign office that is exempt from taxes. Her argument is solid, and it's not fueled by anger which is nice. It is a little hard to follow, but her point gets across nicely. A point that I wished she would've expanded on was McCain calling America a christian nation. I think that was compelling point and I wanted to read more about that.
