My sister emailed this article from One News Hour to me and I thought some of you might appreciate it.
Pastor becomes IRS target
Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 10/26/2008 5:00:00 AM
A group that supports the false philosophy of separation of church and state has filed action against another pastor for having his say about politics.
Bishop Robert E. Smith is senior pastor at Word of Outreach and Christian Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has lodged a complaint against him for endorsing John McCain for president from the pulpit on October 12.
"Bishop Smith knowingly and flagrantly violated the law and has even dared the IRS to investigate him for it," says Americans United leader Barry Lynn in a press release. "I hope the federal tax agency promptly takes him up on that."
But Smith contends the law upon which the complaint was filed with the Internal Revenue Service is unconstitutional.
"Congress cannot make any law that prohibits the free exercise of my faith," the pastor explains. "So a part of my faith as a minister is not only to deal with issues, but to deal with the people who are making the laws that affect the issues -- because I preach a two-sided gospel: the gospel of Christ for salvation, and the gospel of the kingdom for the political stability of its people. So that gets into politics."
The Arkansas pastor remembers a time when pastors could speak freely from the pulpit -- and did. "Well, that's the way it has been," he laments, "but since it's coming out in the form as it is now, a lot of the pastors are getting cold feet and they're backing up."
Smith is one of 33 pastors around the country who have spoken from the pulpit on political candidates and issues as part of Alliance Defense Fund's project to challenge the law and generate a lawsuit to take the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court. Complaints have been filed with the IRS against seven churches so far.
(Now my comment is that we will see a lot more law suits against pastors and a lot more discrimination of freedom of speech and freedom of religion in California if Prop 8 doesn't pass. It's already happening in New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York and Florida. One other point is that there is no such law on the books regarding separation of church and state. That term came from a letter written either by or to Thomas Jefferson. Our government was set up to protect people of faith from the government not the other way around. Unfortunately, a lot of people aren't even aware of that.)
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Comments: 13
this was always a non-issue to me. Maybe good will come from this. The church can pay their taxes, and the preachers can preach politics from the pulpit.
Hmmm. Should get interesting.
With that being said, separation between church and state is so totally twisted here,...
The original meaning of this was that CONGRESS WOULD NOT ESTABLISH A STATE RELIGION, and in case anyone needs needs the reminder this pastor is not congress and he's not establishing a state religion.
so there I've said my piece and counted to three.
Mooch
This means that this organization is tax exempt and yet they get to preach about their belief systems and spread their views about abortion. So, if an abortion clinic can do it and be tax exempt, why can't a church?
But then, I am not the expert.
The IRS is going after not-for-profit organizations for making political statements because the IRS grants certain privileges to not-for-profit corporations (organizations). As a condition of granting such rights (namely, tax exemption), the IRS requires that such organizations refrain from engaging in substantial political activity.
I'm on the board of directors of a not-for-profit organization (a gay one). We would LOVE to engage in political activity, such as helping candidates who support our views get elected. But we're not allowed to, because that would violate the IRS's regulations and we would lose our tax-exempt status.
Please check into the law before making such wild accusations.
If the paster were merely opining about issues of morality, then the IRS probably wouldn't have gone after him. But giving opinions in his official capacity as a governing member of a tax-exempt organization (that allows people to contribute money to it and receive a tax deduction) regarding political candidates is proscribed by IRS regulations granting the tax-exempt status.