This morning was the third annual "Pulpit Freedom Sunday," sponsored by the Alliance Defense Fund, a collection of right-wing lawyers. True to the spirit and practice of American conservatism, they have linked the preservation of churches' tax-exempt status with the First Amendment rights of the pastors who preach within them.
"For governor, I'm going to encourage people to vote for Bill Haslam," said David Shelley, pastor of Smith Springs Baptist Church here, one of seven Tennessee religious leaders who plan to take part in the pulpit protest. He also will throw his support behind a Republican statehouse candidate and urge his congregation to skip the spot on the ballot where a Democratic state senator is running unopposed.
"My support for these candidates has nothing to do with their party or their skin color or any other nonbiblically related issue," he said.
Shelley knows he runs the risk of provoking the Internal Revenue Service into revoking his 60-member church's tax-exempt status. In fact, he's hoping the IRS will try. But this is the second year he's baited the IRS from the pulpit, and still the agency has not risen to the bait.
"We're not trying to get politics in the pulpit. We're trying to get (government) out of the pulpit," said Erik Stanley, spokesman for the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based nonprofit that maintains linking a church's nonprofit status to its nonpartisanship is an unconstitutional restriction on the free speech of the clergy.
"This is about a pastor's right of free speech," Stanley said.
There is simply no reaching these people. To a one, they have decided that the First Amendment guarantees not only the right for them to speak their minds, but also their right to profit, to privileges granted from the government, to complete immunity from the consequences of their words.
One would think that a group of lawyers would be able to understand that there is nothing in the Constitution that bestows tax-exempt status on churches. Therefore, the granting or revocation of that status cannot be an infringement upon anyone's freedom of speech.
Unfortunately, the IRS is reluctant to follow its own rules with these churches - which is the point of the exercise. These pastors wish to show that the IRS, when it comes to churches, is a paper tiger, unwilling to enforce its regulations. They're hoping to bring about a situation in which churches and their representatives are able to campaign whenever, wherever and however they want. They want to be able to use the authority of their robes/suits/pulpits to tell the people in their congregations that God Himself requires them to support Republicans.
If they had any integrity, they would see the very easy way out of this problem. Endorse candidates and initiatives whenever they want, but then be ready to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.
For that matter, tax-exempt status should only be granted to an organization if it can demonstrate a tangible benefit to the community it purports to serve. Merely providing a place for the self-righteous to stew in their own toxic beliefs is hardly a benefit to anyone.
