More than 1,000 pastors are planning
to challenge the IRS next month by deliberately preaching politics ahead of the
presidential election despite a federal ban on endorsements from the pulpit.
The defiant move, they hope, will
prompt the IRS to enforce a 1954 tax code amendment that prohibits tax-exempt
organizations, such as churches, from making political endorsements. Alliance
Defending Freedom, which is holding the October summit, said it wants the IRS
to press the matter so it can be decided in court. The group believes the law
violates the First Amendment by “muzzling” preachers.
“The purpose is to make sure that
the pastor -- and not the IRS -- decides what is said from the pulpit." - Erik Stanley, Alliance Defending
Freedom
“The purpose is to make sure that
the pastor -- and not the IRS -- decides what is said from the pulpit,” Erik
Stanley, senior legal counsel for the group, told FoxNews.com. “It is a head-on
constitutional challenge.”
Stanley said pastors attending the
Oct. 7 “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” will “preach sermons that will talk about the
candidates running for office” and then “make a specific recommendation.” The
sermons will be recorded and sent to the IRS.
“We’re hoping the IRS will respond
by doing what they have threatened,” he said. “We have to wait for it to be
applied to a particular church or pastor so that we can challenge it in court.
We don’t think it’s going to take long for a judge to strike this down as
unconstitutional.”
An amendment was made to the IRS tax
code in 1954, stating that tax-exempt organizations are “absolutely prohibited
from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political
campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public
office.”
“Violation of this prohibition may
result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of
certain excise tax,” the IRS says in its online guide for churches and religious
organizations seeking tax exemption.
Stanley and others, like San Diego
pastor Jim Garlow, say the IRS regularly threatens churches that they will lose
their tax-exempt status if they preach politics. But Stanley and Garlow claim
the government never acts on the threat because it wants to avoid a court
battle.
“It is blatantly unconstitutional,”
said Stanley. “They just prefer to put out these vague statements and
regulations and enforce it through a system of intimidation … Pastors are
afraid to address anything political from the pulpit.”
“The IRS will send out notices from
time to time and say you crossed the line,” added Garlow, a senior pastor of
Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego. “But when it’s time to go to court, they
close the case.”
A spokeswoman for the IRS did not
comment on the matter and instead referred all inquiries to the government’s
online handbook
.
Garlow and other pastors say their
concerns over the code extend well beyond the law.
“I’m very concerned about the
spiritual side of this,” Garlow told FoxNews.com. “There’s a phenomenon
occurring in America and that’s a loss of religious liberty.”
“If I would have said 50 years that
‘Tearing up a baby in the womb is a bad thing,’ people would have said ‘Of
course it is,’” Garlow said. “But If I said that today, people would say
‘Pastor, you’re being too political.”
Source: foxnews.com By Cristina Corbin Published September 23, 2012 FoxNews.com
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