Posted on 07/27/2006 8:20:43 AM PDT by xzins
Five years ago, I wrote about threats made by the Internal Revenue Service against conservative churches for supposedly engaging in politicking. Today, the IRS is again attempting to chill free speech, sending notices to more than 15,000 non-profit organizations—including churches—regarding its new crackdown on political activity.
But what exactly constitutes political activity? What if a member of the clergy urges his congregation to work toward creating a pro-life culture, when an upcoming election features a pro-life candidate? What if a minister admonishes churchgoers that homosexuality is sinful, when an initiative banning gay marriage is on an upcoming ballot? Where exactly do we draw the line, and when does the IRS begin to violate the First amendment’s guarantee of free exercise of religion?
I agree with my colleague Walter Jones of North Carolina that the political views of any particular church or its members are none of the government’s business. Congressman Jones introduced legislation that addresses this very serious issue of IRS harassment of churches engaging in conservative political activity. This bill is badly needed to end the IRS practice of threatening certain politically disfavored faiths with loss of their tax-exempt status, while ignoring the very open and public political activities of other churches. While some well-known leftist preachers routinely advocate socialism from the pulpit, many conservative Christian and Jewish congregations cannot present their political beliefs without risking scrutiny from the tax collector.
The supposed motivation behind the ban on political participation by churches is the need to maintain a rigid separation between church and state. However, the First amendment simply prohibits the federal government from passing laws that establish religion or prohibit the free exercise of religion. There certainly is no mention of any "separation of church and state," yet lawmakers and judges continually assert this mythical doctrine.
The result is court rulings and laws that separate citizens from their religious beliefs in all public settings, in clear violation of the free exercise clause. Our Founders never envisioned a rigidly secular public society, where people must nonsensically disregard their deeply held beliefs in all matters of government and politics. They certainly never imagined that the federal government would actively work to chill the political activities of some churches.
Speech is speech, regardless of the setting. There is no legal distinction between religious expression and political expression; both are equally protected by the First amendment. Religious believers do not drop their political opinions at the door of their place of worship, nor do they disregard their faith at the ballot box. Religious morality will always inform the voting choices of Americans of all faiths.
The political left, however, seeks to impose the viewpoint that public life must be secular, and that government cannot reflect morality derived from faith. Many Democrats, not all, are threatened by strong religious institutions because they want an ever-growing federal government to serve as the unchallenged authority in our society. So the real motivation behind the insistence on a separation of church and state is not based on respect for the First amendment, but rather on a desire to diminish the influence of religious conservatives at the ballot box.
The Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom must not depend on the whims of IRS bureaucrats. Religious institutions cannot freely preach their beliefs if they must fear that the government will accuse them of "politics." We cannot allow churches to be silenced any more than we can allow political dissent in general to be silenced. Free societies always have strong, independent institutions that are not afraid to challenge and criticize the government.
The cases of polygamy and drug use are of interest to me.
In the case of the drug use by different tribes, most denominations supported the tribes against the Fed Government. I remember at the time even Jerry Falwell came out in support of the tribes. There is no compelling reason I can think of for these tribes not to be able to worship according to their religion.
Polygamy is a court decision that preceded our age. Polygamy existed in the time of Christ, yet it was Christ who said the ideal was monogamy. The Apostle Paul seems to reluctantly accept polygamy, but won't allow it for church leaders (elders and deacons.)
The state has a compelling interest in the child producing units within the state; and it might even have an interest in poverty resulting in too many under-poverty children as a result of multiple marriages.
But, to the extent that marriage is a religious act, I would want the government to keep it's nose out of church business.
Wrong.
Tax-exempt status is not a Constitutional right. It is a recongition of charitable aims for an organization's activities.
Or perhaps you think political donations should be tax deductible?
This isn't about the tax rate - it's too high. It's about notions of who should be tax-exempt and who should not. Even Scriptures says render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.
Hey, when god chose to speak to Moses, he used a Bush.
One is not talking of taxing their speech [or other noise] but their existence
When a tax is predicated on the exercise of political or religious speech it a defacto tax on speech.
Remove all such predicates and you might have a case, as long as speech is an issue of whether or not an organization is taxable or not it is clearly a matter of speech not mere existance.
A tax exemption based on not exercising an inalienable right is the taxation of that right.
Remove all such conditions, you have a lawful taxation under Article I Section 8 of the Constitution. Making a tax law that predicates exemption on not exercising the full right of political and religous speech is to tax that right.
Congress may make no law ... comprends a prohibition on the making of tax law as well.
Your insistence on changing the subject could be attributed to dis-ingenuity only.
Since the subject has been the predicate of taxing the right of political and religous speech the changing of subject to would appear to lay in your camp. For merely taxing without a predicate impinging on unalienable rights is not at issue.
Predicating taxation on an unalienable right is the issue.
More taxes and less freedom will never fix anything.
Precisely!!
Taxation is predicated on existence, regardless of any rights, alienable or not. If you exist, you are taxed. Exemptions from taxation are granted only conditionally, and ought not to be granted at all. They violate the exemption conditions - so the taxable status would only serve them right.
that the government is the enemy of freedom and liberty.
Here is their 2nd chance not to miss the point. You are exactly right.
Not to mention the second half of rendering unto God that which is God's does preclude any claim of Caesar's on that which is rendered to God.
Awesome post, JP!
Seriously, thoughtful outstanding comments.
Thanks.
"In a Republic we allegedly have some say over who Caesar is."
Sure. In secular life, we "allegedly" do.
But most Christian churches are directed by the Word, and the scripture says to render unto God that which is God's.
"And furthermore, hell no."
Since you used a profanity, you must be right.
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