The Internal Revenue Service will maintain a policy barring pastors and churches from endorsing political candidates following a surprise ruling in a high-stakes court battle.
In a March 31 opinion, Judge J. Campbell Barker in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas dismissed a lawsuit filed by the National Religious Broadcasters and others that challenged an IRS rule known as the Johnson Amendment.
The Johnson Amendment was introduced by former President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1954 when he was serving as U.S. Senate majority leader. It bans all tax-exempt organizations like churches and charities from “directly or indirectly” participating in politics, specifically in endorsement or opposition of candidates.
I have no problem with churches backing candidates, if they surrender their tax free status first.
Actually, churches should not be tax exempt anyway. If they’re doing good work in the community, they can open their books and apply for 501©3 status.
They can back anyone they want–and lose their tax exempt status. They can’t have it both ways.
Churches get political all the time, they just don’t face consequences for it.
Selective enforcement is back on the menu, boys.
The judges ruling is specifically about not allowing selective enforcement:
However, Barker’s decision effectively nulls the exception. The ruling is largely because, according to Barker, federal courts do not have the jurisdiction to change the tax status of a plaintiff or create exemptions from tax laws. His court cannot provide declaratory relief “with respect to federal taxes,” the judge said in his opinion.
“Could let” presumes they can’t and don’t currently. And that’s ridiculous.
I know when we think of politics in church you think of evangelicals and Republicans, but don’t forget that the black Church has been nexus for progressive politics since forever.
I bring this up because a misguided attempt to reign all this in would give a powerful tool to those who’d suppress Democrat voters. (If you ever wonder why Republicans hate Sunday voting, you probably haven’t seen the church bus pull up to the polling station.)
A church providing transportation to a polling place, which were I live are often churches themselves, is very different than a pastor endorsing a candidate during a service.
