Members:
Ohio ministers challenge Ariz. group's pulpit plan (9/9/08)
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Associated Press Writer
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP, 9/9/08) — A group of mainline ministers in swing state Ohio is challenging a push by a conservative legal organization to allow pastors to endorse or oppose political candidates.
The group led by a liberal United Church of Christ minister in Columbus says the IRS restriction against politics in the pulpit should stay in effect.
UCC minister Eric Williams says the effort by the Scottsdale-based Alliance Defense Fund jeopardizes the historic separation of church and state in the United States. He said the initiative is the work of extremists. Williams and other ministers plan to file a complaint with the IRS Monday.
By allowing pastors to endorse political candidates, ``The church loses authority when it's time to speak out against the actions and authority of government,'' Williams said.
``I don't want a bunch of extremists having a bully pulpit to start espousing a bunch of extremist views,'' he said.
The defense fund launched its Pulpit Initiative to challenge the IRS restriction on ministers supporting or opposing political candidates.
The fund has enlisted ministers around the country, including Ohio, to invite investigations by the IRS by giving political sermons Sept. 28, a day the fund has dubbed ``Pulpit Freedom Sunday.'' It says it will represent any churches targeted by the IRS in lawsuits against the government.
``It's the job of the pastor to determine the content of his sermon, not the IRS,'' said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel with the defense fund.
The group argues that politics and preaching freely mixed for much of the nation's history. That ended in 1954 with the IRS restriction against endorsing or opposing a candidate. Churches found in violation of that rule could lose their tax-exempt status.
Through the initiative, the fund ``seeks to restore the right of each pastor to speak Scriptural truth from the pulpit about moral, social, governmental, and other issues without fear of losing his church's tax exempt status,'' according to defense fund documents explaining the process.
IRS spokesman Chris Kerns said the agency had no comment.
Williams helped organize a similar complaint against two pastors in 2006, alleging they were violating the IRS restriction by support for GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell that amounted to a political endorsement.
The complaint that Williams' group plans to file Monday will ask the IRS to stop the defense fund from signing up churches to violate the federal restriction.
The group also wants the IRS to investigate whether the Pulpit Initiative is itself illegal, putting the defense fund's tax exempt status in jeopardy. And it wants the IRS to investigate the tax consequences for individuals or groups who may have donated money to the defense fund.
Stanley asked Williams and the head of the UCC in Ohio in a letter Wednesday to reconsider their action. He reminded them of the IRS' investigation of the UCC earlier this year over allegations the denomination violated IRS rules when it hosted Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama at its convention in Hartford in 2007.
``Certainly you must feel the chill from the IRS,'' Stanley wrote.
In the UCC case, the tax agency ultimately found no violations had occurred.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP, 9/9/08) — A group of mainline ministers in swing state Ohio is challenging a push by a conservative legal organization to allow pastors to endorse or oppose political candidates.
The group led by a liberal United Church of Christ minister in Columbus says the IRS restriction against politics in the pulpit should stay in effect.
UCC minister Eric Williams says the effort by the Scottsdale-based Alliance Defense Fund jeopardizes the historic separation of church and state in the United States. He said the initiative is the work of extremists. Williams and other ministers plan to file a complaint with the IRS Monday.
By allowing pastors to endorse political candidates, ``The church loses authority when it's time to speak out against the actions and authority of government,'' Williams said.
``I don't want a bunch of extremists having a bully pulpit to start espousing a bunch of extremist views,'' he said.
The defense fund launched its Pulpit Initiative to challenge the IRS restriction on ministers supporting or opposing political candidates.
The fund has enlisted ministers around the country, including Ohio, to invite investigations by the IRS by giving political sermons Sept. 28, a day the fund has dubbed ``Pulpit Freedom Sunday.'' It says it will represent any churches targeted by the IRS in lawsuits against the government.
``It's the job of the pastor to determine the content of his sermon, not the IRS,'' said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel with the defense fund.
The group argues that politics and preaching freely mixed for much of the nation's history. That ended in 1954 with the IRS restriction against endorsing or opposing a candidate. Churches found in violation of that rule could lose their tax-exempt status.
Through the initiative, the fund ``seeks to restore the right of each pastor to speak Scriptural truth from the pulpit about moral, social, governmental, and other issues without fear of losing his church's tax exempt status,'' according to defense fund documents explaining the process.
IRS spokesman Chris Kerns said the agency had no comment.
Williams helped organize a similar complaint against two pastors in 2006, alleging they were violating the IRS restriction by support for GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell that amounted to a political endorsement.
The complaint that Williams' group plans to file Monday will ask the IRS to stop the defense fund from signing up churches to violate the federal restriction.
The group also wants the IRS to investigate whether the Pulpit Initiative is itself illegal, putting the defense fund's tax exempt status in jeopardy. And it wants the IRS to investigate the tax consequences for individuals or groups who may have donated money to the defense fund.
Stanley asked Williams and the head of the UCC in Ohio in a letter Wednesday to reconsider their action. He reminded them of the IRS' investigation of the UCC earlier this year over allegations the denomination violated IRS rules when it hosted Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama at its convention in Hartford in 2007.
``Certainly you must feel the chill from the IRS,'' Stanley wrote.
In the UCC case, the tax agency ultimately found no violations had occurred.
