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.
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 How, then, have their rights been revoked if they have equal standing to engage in political activity?
"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.