Posted on 01/29/2012 11:50:20 AM PST by daniel1212
In a court decision from 1990 called Employment Division v. Smith, the Court allowed the government greater latitude to restrict the free exercise of religion. The Court held in Smith that if a law was neutral as to religion and if it was generally applicable to all people, then the government was allowed to burden the free exercise of religion. The Smith case marked a drastic departure from the Supreme Court’s earlier precedents which uniformly held that any law, even if that law was neutral and generally applicable, could not burden the free exercise of religion unless the law was justified by a compelling governmental interest that was advanced in the least restrictive means available. This test is the strongest test available under the constitution.
In applying this test over the years, the Court candidly acknowledged that the test was strong medicine and that many laws burdening the free exercise of religion did not meet this test and were invalidated because they violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment...
This is good news for pastors chafing under the unconstitutional restriction of the Johnson Amendment. What affects the faith and mission of the church itself more than a governmental restriction on a pastor’s sermon from the pulpit?
The Hosanna-Tabor case means that the IRS will now have to demonstrate a compelling reason for restricting a pastor’s sermon from the pulpit. They cannot do so. In fact, there is no legitimate reason for the Johnson Amendment. And if you take a moment to understand the history behind the adoption of the Johnson Amendment, you’ll understand just how true that is. Hosanna-Tabor is one more indication that the Johnson Amendment is unconstitutional and should be struck down at the earliest opportunity.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.speakupmovement.org ...
Moderator - please note that the author is Author Erik Stanley - ADF Senior Legal Counsel, not CNN, which referred to the “Pastors protest New York ban on religious services” article.
What a poorly written story.
And I’m still trying to figure out the CNN connection. It looks like the story was written by some guy named Eric Stanley, but you credit it to Vivienne Foley, CNN.
Please note the word “Excerpt” (300 word limit on such) and go to the link, and look to the post above your the correction on the author. Sorry.
OK, a lousy writeup, but it looks like a church’s being a tax deductible charitable organization is now not going to stop internal church preaching. As if the likes of the Rat Reverend Wrong cared about it anyhow, but now it’s an explicit protection even for unpopular righties. You can say now for example that Mitt stinks according to the bible, or that he smells like a rose according to the book of mormon, whatever is floating your spiritual boat.
You would need to be somewhat familiar with the 501(3)(c) controversy, and its effects - and possible effects (due to the imprecise nature of the restrictions).
And which includes charges from some Christian groups against those who are under the 501(3)(c).
More here:
http://www.goodnewsaboutgod.com/studies/spiritual/the_organized_church/501c3.htm
http://hushmoney.org/DRK501c3.htm
http://stevenbirnspeaks.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/glenn-beck-right-to-highlight-501c3-absuse-wrong-to-organize-protest/
IRS describes a 501(c)(3) as a group:
“which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”
The Employment Division v. Smith case was about whether Smith could get unemployment benefits after being fired for smoking Peyote during a religious Indian ceremony.
And as with more extreme things like child sacrifice, the State does have a responsibility to prohibit such, but which manifests the reality that there is not separation of church and state as regards moral beliefs and laws. As preposterous as it may sound, you could have a State which actually sanctions cannibalism, or more realistically, polygamy.
A basic presupposition of the founding fathers ideas on freedom of religion was that power would retain to the Christian religion.
Likewise, when John Adams said that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other,” I do not think she was thinking of a religion which is behind a government like that of Hamas.
Daniel Webster — “If there is anything in my thoughts or style to commend, the credit is due to my parents for instilling in me an early love of the Scriptures. If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.”
If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be;
If God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy; If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will;
If the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.”
Lastly, our ancestors established their system of government on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits.... Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.”
“Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary.” - http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/quotes_compare.html
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