Posted on 11/11/2005 7:04:03 AM PST by Mikey
I probably don't agree with much of what the pastors of the All Saints Episcopal Church in Los Angeles preach. I probably don't agree with much of what the congregation believes.
But on this we agree: The Internal Revenue Service is attacking them unjustly because of the content of the messages expressed from the pulpit.
That is wrong. That is immoral. That is despicable. That is unconstitutional. That is deplorable. And it should be illegal.
The story begins on the even of the 2004 presidential election. The church offered a guest sermon by the Rev. George F. Regas, the retired former rector.
Regas did not urge the congregation to support either presidential candidate or any other candidate on the ballot. Not that that should matter. I believe pastors and priests and rabbis have a duty to be engaged in the political culture of our country. Regas did, however, criticize the war in Iraq and President Bush's tax cuts.
And for that, the IRS is challenging the tax-exempt status of the church.
There is no question about where this church stands on the issues. On its website, the church says the Republican-backed propositions on the California ballot would "alter the very fabric of our lives as a democracy by limiting the right to representation and the right to express a political point of view."
Now, frankly, that's some of the most hyperbolic political rhetoric I've ever heard from a church in my life. But so what?
If I ever stumbled into the All Saints Episcopal Church in Los Angeles by accident, thinking it might be a good place to worship the Lord, I'd probably walk out very disappointed after a few minutes of listening.
But when the federal government starts monitoring the content of what preachers say in the pulpit, we're moving toward the kind of repression experienced in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Communist China. This is not the American tradition. This is not the way of the U.S. Constitution. This is the very antithesis of the First Amendment.
IRS regulations, if in conflict with the Constitution – and, I dare say, most are – need to be repealed.
I was a victim of just this kind of official harassment at the hands of the IRS during the Clinton administration. It is no more attractive to me when perpetrated by Republicans – or even by accident by an out-of-control bureaucracy.
It is no more justifiable. It is no more constitutional. It is no more moral. It is no more American when perpetrated by President Bush's administration.
Does Bush really want to be remembered as a president who used the IRS as an attack dog against churches that got out of line?
Back in 1996 – when I ran a non-profit journalism institute, the Western Journalism Center, and sponsored investigative reporting into the many, almost countless, misdeeds of the Clinton administration – I, too, stood accused of playing politics during an election year.
I fought the IRS and won. But it was a costly victory.
Do we really want less political information disseminated, less political debate, less political speech during election years? Or do we want to foster more?
The IRS is out of line, again. Whoever is pulling the strings this time is as corrupt as Bill Clinton was in 1996. In America, politics is supposed to be a battle of ideas, not the exercise of raw, unchecked power.
This action by the IRS, and whoever is behind it, is despicable, revolting, reprehensible and criminal.
If the All Saints Episcopal Church is looking for an expert witness to support its case in a major lawsuit against the IRS and its other political enemies in the federal government, I hereby volunteer for duty.
And I enlist the support of all thoughtful Americans who appreciate the unique role of the church and the First Amendment in our country to support its efforts to battle this heinous injustice.
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The ability of the government to silence non-profit organizations is one of the most vile things that Congress has ever done and one of the best reasons to get rid of the income tax.
Episcopal ping. You play with fire, you may get burned.
What with the "war on terrorism" going on, the IRS should be at the top of the hit list.
But remember "principles"? Liberals may have abandoned them years ago, but it's up to us to preserve them.
Farah gets it. If they can do it to the antiwar left today, Hitlery can do it to us big-time tomorrow. Never give a power to your best friend that you wouldn't want your worst enemy to exercise.
As you say, it's time to abolish the IRS, indeed, to abolish the income tax altogether. All that an income tax does is say that what you work for belongs to the government. That's serfdom, slavery, and socialism.
We need to transcend our differences on other matters and stand together to oppose this abuse of power.
But will the left tolerate that? It seems to make them angry whenever conservatievs agree with them, especially if we're active in doing something about it.
The irony here is that it was Democrats, in 2004, that were trying to get conservative churches busted for this very thing. While liberal churches were actually more politically active.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?s=churches+IRS&ok=Search&q=deep&m=all&o=time&SX=4374b880e8800b7d3e4aa80bbb1e15470653441b
I view this as a positive development. If the IRS can remove the tax-free status of conservative groups, it should to the same to liberal groups. Why should the Christian Coalition get hammered and the ACLU get off scot free? Why should orthodox churches be limited in what they preach, while black churches can invite bill clinton in to give the sermon on election day?
Hopefully that would wake people up and they would come to the right conclusion, which is that preachers should be entitled to preach whatever they want from the pulpit.
The Constitution never says a thing about a "wall of separation." All it says is "no establishment of religion," which means no official National Church like the Church of England.
Of course not.
Instead, he'll find a scapegoat and use the opportunity to impose an even more oppressive form of taxation.
"I am one of those who do not believe that a national debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic; inasmuch as it is calculated to raise around the administration a moneyed aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country."-- President Andrew Jackson - (1824)
That is wrong. That is immoral. That is despicable. That is unconstitutional. That is deplorable. And it should be illegal.
That is results you get, when your civil leadership asserts the primacy of their civil government over the sovereignty of God. The government cannot take away a group's tax exempt status unless it first claims it has the authority to grant such status. No church should assent to that claim, IMO.
Christians were not thrown to the lions in Rome for worshipping Jesus. They were executed for asserting that Jesus was Lord, even Lord over Caesar himself.
On June 8, 1789, James Madison presented his proposed Amendments to the House of Representatives of the First Federal Congress. The following are excerpts from the most relevant discussions.
Monday June 8, 1789 James Madison Speaking:
"Fifthly. That in article 1st, section 10, between clauses 1 and 2 be inserted this clause to wit: No state shall violate the equal rights of conscience, or freedom of the press, or trial by jury in criminal cases."
Source of Information:
Annals of Congress 1:434-435)
No politics from the pulpit! It hurts to defend the IRS, but on this one they are right. Churches should not be promoting political causes or viewpoints, and removing their tax-exempt status is proper punishment for crossing the line. The job of the clergy is to teach the Word of God. Politics is 'of this world,' and Jesus was above it. In all of my years with my church, I have never been able to discern the political stances of the pastors from their sermons, although I suspect they lean to the left. I am definitely a conservative.
You are clearly lost.
I'll pray for you.
Glenn, I can't be duplicitous in my viewpoint. In my area, all to often it's the liberals doing the offending. Back at you.
Oh, yes, I'm familiar with the letter to the Danbury Baptists, as anyone must be. But those who elevate "wall of separation" into a constitutional principle that says "no religion in public" are, first of all, taking that part of the letter out of context with the rest of it and with Jefferson's other writings, and also are taking a private letter and pretending it is part of the Constitution.
The Founding Fathers wrote whole libraries of letters and other works. Does everything they wrote amount to a constitutional prescription, or only those particular words that are convenient to liberal activists?
The meaning of "there shall be no establishment of religion" is plain, and very different from what the activist judges have made it out to be. It means there shall be no official state religion imposed on our country, as the Church of England was imposed at that time upon England. Another name for the Church of England is The Established Church.
Christianity itself divides religion from politics. "Give unto God that which is God's, and give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's." It would be healthier to let religions control their own involvement in politics than to invent constitutional limitations that are not in the Constitution. As a rule, when parts of Christianity have gotten too political, they have lost followers, because that's not the essence of Christianity.
I thought this might be of interest to you.
It is the income tax code that gives rise to "non-profit" organizations. And if you examine the history of non-profits, Democrats and other socialists were way out front of the more recent conservative think tanks which are actually a reaction to the unopposed very successful use of the socialistic non-profits to lobby and advance their political agenda. If you think about it carefully, the single strongest argument for scrapping the income tax code is to get rid of the charitable deduction which has served to finance the advance of socialism and finance the dominance enjoyed by the Democratic Party for decades after the XVIth Amendment was passed. The surest way to make sure "non-profits" are not used to shape the political agenda instead of serving as charitable, educational, or scientific organizations is by making sure the money comes from donors and not from indirect payments from taxpayers via the "code".
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