Americans United reports on a speech given by Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Mark Everson at a National Press Club luncheon in March:
“I am particularly concerned about prohibited political intervention by charities and churches as we head into the 2006 electoral season,” said Everson. “Clearly, political intervention by charities and churches is an area where the IRS must tread carefully. There are few bright lines for evaluating political intervention. But I am convinced that we must act. We can’t afford to have our charitable and religious institutions undermined by politics.”
Everson went on to point out that “Congress has set in law and the Supreme Court has upheld that while those rights are enshrined in our Constitution, you don’t have a right to be subsidized by the American taxpayer through a tax exemption.” Many religious leaders imagine that their tax exemptions are a right protected by the Constitution when, in fact, the are a privilege granted by Congress. It’s likely that tax exemptions are ultimately better for religious liberty than taxation, but that’s not unquestionably the case and the courts have made it clear that they aren’t constitutionally required.
Congress has, however, wisely attached some conditions to these tax exemptions and one, which applies to all non-profit entities, is a ban on getting involved in partisan political campaigns. Churches can takes sides on moral, social, and political issues all they want, but they can’t use this as a mask for taking sides in specific campaigns: they cannot endorse or attack any candidates for any political office. If they could, then candidates would be going to them like they already do to special interest groups and this, in turn, would cause religious organizations to turn against each other in the political realm.
It’s bad enough that these groups bicker with one another about the identity of an alleged god, what this god might want, and the direction to face when pretending to talk with this alleged god. That last thing we want added to all this nonsense is for them to take sides in political campaigns with a church on one side slinging political mud against a cathedral on the other. Of course, such activity might help reveal just how base they all really are, but the simultaneous harm done to politics probably isn’t worth the price.
Separation of Church & State: