By Nathan Rothwell
Christian advocacy group Alliance
Defending Freedom has been promoting that day as “Pulpit Freedom Sunday,”
an event in which thousands of American religious leaders intend to spit in the
face of IRS rules which limit the political activities of tax-exempt
organizations. The event has been heavily promoted on Fox News via everyone’s
favorite pastor-pundit Mike Huckabee, and appears to be a massive display of
civil disobedience aimed at provoking a lawsuit against the IRS.
An interesting experiment is set to unfold on the morning of
Sunday, October 7.
Proponents
of Pulpit Freedom Sunday claim that their right to free speech was taken
away from them by the so-called “Johnson Amendment.” Weary of those who were using non-profit
organizations to unduly influence elections, then-Senator and future President
Lyndon Johnson helped pass an amendment to the United States Tax Code which specifically
prohibits 501(c)3 organizations (such as religious institutions) from endorsing
or opposing any candidate for public office, either directly or indirectly.
I will admit that a government edict which places
restrictions on the right to free speech for non-profit organizations directly
influences the separation of church and state, one of this country’s oldest and
most firmly held ideas. According to Pastor Jim Garlow, a spokesman for the Pulpit
Freedom Sunday movement, the IRS indeed has a wide brush to control or censor
speech from the pulpit, or else threaten to revoke the tax-exempt status of a
religious organization which defies the Johnson Amendment.
That being said, however, I and many others see an obvious
solution to this problem: You want your right to free speech in full, like
every other American? Then give up your tax-exempt status, which is a privilege
afforded to only a chosen few. Of course this doesn’t sit well with Garlow and
others, and for obvious reasons. According
to former White House senior policy analyst Jeff Schweitzer, churches own
an estimated $300 to $500 billion in untaxed property in the United States. So while most pastors hold their service to
the Almighty in the highest regard, they aren’t about to forget about their devotion
to the almighty dollar.
The pastors who champion Pulpit Freedom Sunday seem to forget that
tax-exempt status is a privilege in this country, guaranteed nowhere by the
Constitution. I’m not so sure religious organizations should be afforded this
privilege at all, for the following reasons:
