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.
So, then, a TV commercial for Tide should not be taxed then, either, since that is free speech as well.
What do you not understand about:
What do YOU NOT UNDERSTAND about tax breaks for chartiable organizations? And that such breaks can be revoked if the organization engages in non-charitable activites, such as commerce or political activity. There is no First Amendment right to be tax-exempt.
What if there is a fire in that movie theater? Wouldn't you want me to stand up and yell 'fire'?
I have no problem with punishment for MISUSE of freedom and prosecuting someone who yelled fire when there was none would certainly be okay, but it is not illegal to yell fire else you couldn't legitimately warn people of a fire.
Criminal conspiracy is not a protected activity but thanks for that strawman. We can add him to the 'yelling fire in the theater' bogus argument.
A right is a right. Period. Unalienable. So called reasonable restrictions are just an attempt to regulate rights and transform them into government granted privileges. What they government can grant, the government can take away.
Political activity is just one subset of prohibited non-charitable actions. If a tax-exempt is caught doing any of those activities, they can lose their tax-exempt status. The law is not just about politics.
That subset of prohibited activity happens to be a prohibition against a guaranteed right under the 1st amendment of the constitution.
Just what is it about "Congress shall make no law", that abridges the freedom of speech that you do not understand.
Don't blame the IRS. Blame YOUR congressman, and Senators.
What is the government granted privilege in question here? A privilege to not pay taxes if you engage in charitable activities.
If a church were to become a commercial operation (and a few of them closely resemble such) and only gave five percent of donations to charity, should they still have a charitable tax-exempt status?
How is engaging in political activity any different? All this does is remove the government-granted tax break if the terms of that tax break are removed. Once the tax break is removed, the entity in question is treated the exact same as any other political organization. How, then, have their rights been revoked if they have equal standing to engage in political activity?
Bull!!! Abolish all tax-exemptions. Then Congress has no leverage on anyone.
That's what I thought too. ;-)
Once again, the revocation is not of the right to speak. Just getting a tax break for charitable actions. The NRA does just fine segratating their political and tax-exempt operations. Their political operations are treated equally under the law as any other political operation - they just are not tax-exempt because they are not charitable.
No First Amendment issues here at all. There is no censorship of the NRA's political views, it's just those views are not promulated with tax-exempt donations. Like every other poltical organization.
NOW we're talking! And move towards a flat tax.
I guess I still want there to be a distinction because otherwise what's to keep a leftist PAC like MoveOn.org from insisting they are a church.
Why should they be taxed for exercise of an unalienable right guaranteed under the constitution?
What does calling one's self a church have to do with it? Political Action Committe is just another case, PAC contributions should not be taxed under the 1st amendment prohibition against Congress making such law regardless of what individual citizen is contributing or the organization receiving said contribution in exercise of the freedom of speech, assembly, press or petition.
Generally, I'd say the products that come out of the system will determine what one is dealing with.
If the products of religion are faith, worship, sacrament, ritual, charity, etc., then one can look at the products of a new entity claiming to be religion and make a determination whether fraud is likely.
"What the government grants, the government can take away."
Uh, the government doesn't grant me nuthin'; we gave it certain powers and retained the rest.
What we're doing right now, tapping away on these keyboards? This isn't speech, but a `strawman' like moose-limbs communicating their intention to harm us, a clear and present danger? Gee, are you with the NYT? If it is speech, well, then according to the 1st Amendment I should be able to `say' anything I want here on FR, right?
Burning the US flag is a form of `speech'. Are you in favor of that? How about threatening the life of the president?
I could go on and on but I think you're just being obstinate. There's more: life's not fair, then we die.
Not that this batch is all that great, but the decisions coming out of the IRS today are based on laws over a decade old. (Does CFR address religion again?...I didn't think so...)
We'd have to blame congresscritters from back then.
It isn't and would allow far more personal freedom than we now have as well as economic benefits to almost all taxpayers. It would end all the foolish attempts my government in attempting to control through income taxation.
Once again, should a Tide TV commercial be taxed?
You obviously know nothing about the FairTax - how it operates or improves things. I suggest you look into it.
There is no censorship of the NRA's political views, it's just those views are not promulated with tax-exempt donations. Like every other poltical organization.
And like every other political organization, the taxation of donations to them are an abridgement of the right of freedom of speech.
Such taxation is still a clear violation of the prohibition of Congress to make law in such situations.
"Congress shall make no law", that abridges the freedom of speech, press, non-violent assembly and petition.
You still haven't answered my question - should a TV commercial for Tide be taxed?
In view of the benefits of the FairTax, it's pretty much a no-brainer that the income tax is history.
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