Pulpit Freedom Sunday -- Should the Church Be Tax-Exempt?

[trailmonkee]

From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-siebold/pulpit-freedom-sunday_b_1930244.html

An army of more than 1,000 pastors from around the country will take on the IRS this coming Sunday by participating in what's being called "Pulpit Freedom Sunday." Under the Johnson Amendment, tax-exempt organizations, including churches, are not allowed to endorse any candidate running for elective public office. The real issue behind Pulpit Freedom Sunday is whether or not free speech reigns irrefutably over tax-exempt organizations, or should groups such as churches be permitted to make political recommendations to its members? And beyond that, the even larger question is why are churches still classified as tax-exempt?

Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian organization behind Pulpit Freedom Sunday, says it's unconstitutional and pastors are being censored, and the church across America is being silenced. They're encouraging pastors to preach politics this Sunday, and to record the sermons and mail them to the IRS. The group is hoping the IRS will follow through on its threats of removing the tax-exempt status of a church caught preaching politics, so it can bring the matter to a judge to decide, because they say a judge is likely to see it as a clear violation of the First Amendment.

In general, the government should not have the right to suppress free speech. Freedom of speech is protected in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights and is guaranteed to all Americans. However, in regards to Pulpit Freedom Day, the church can't have its cake and eat it too. If it wants to be classified as a tax-exempt organization, then it needs to play by the rules and abstain from preaching politics.

Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code describes what the government considers to be an eligible nonprofit, religious group. "A tax-exempt religious organization is a legal entity or vehicle created and operated exclusively for religious purposes, no part of the net earnings of which insures to the benefit of any private individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence legislation, and which does not participate in or interfere in any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office."

With that said, the church in America saves roughly 71 billion dollars annually by being tax-exempt. Imagine how much food that could buy to feed the hungry, or how it could help those less fortunate. This might be acceptable if the church was actually encouraging strategies to reduce human suffering, irresponsible behavior that harms others, ending violence in our neighborhoods and other critical issues. Churches do not serve the common good; they propagate ancient supernatural mythology that brainwashes people into believing the unbelievable and impedes social and scientific progress.

[AnOhioan]

1. Tax them all.......churches are businesses....non-profit my ass

[Ganja Ninja]

6. Yup.

Just giving them tax exempt status is a recognition of them by the government as something special. If church's are like charities then let them write off their charitable expenses for actual charitable work and not the limos, mansions, TV studios and political campaigns.

[quaker bill]

2. Why fall for it?

The point of all this is simple. Once you tax churches then they become as eligible for government funding as any other corporation. They already run a system of accredited schools. Once the seperation is removed there would be no reason under law for their schools not to be funded with taxpayer dollars, at least in theory. You are missing the endgame here, they have potential Charter schools all over the landscape up and running with adequate facilities and professional staff, ready to go.

They would not risk tax exempt status if they did not think it had a big financial upside. In a tight economy, paying both school taxes and private school tuition is tough and enrollment has dropped in many of these institutions. The "Holy Grail" for decades in this case has been attempting to figure out a way to grab the local school tax dollars.

Ordinary corporations have figured out how to avoid taxes just fine without the religious exemption. If you start taxing churches they will simply need to adapt to the same approach taken by so many others.

So in the end, they probably pay little to no taxes, get to preach politics all they want, send funds to the candidates they desire, and grab local school taxes to fund their private schools. Better yet, since they are now formally a "business" they will probably get tax incentives like most other businesses to do so.

There is a reason the founders seperated Church from state, and it was not to protect the Church, it was to protect the state.

[hobbit709]

4. Jefferson and Madison wanted to tax churches.

[quaker bill]

8. But the majority didn't

Thom Paine wanted state established religions. The majority didn't. He boycotted the constitutional convention over it for a bit. The Quaker view won the day, they did not like established religions or the tithe being a tax, mostly because many spent alot of time in prison over the issue. those who were not executed.

[davidpdx]

3. They are not only counting on the IRS to take action

but also the Corporate Supreme Court to back them up. If anyone has the information of a church that does this I'd be happy to file a complaint online.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

5. OK, here's the thing...

By most estimates I can find, there are about 300,000 individual congregations in the United States. Pulpit Freedom Sunday is touting a probably-inflated figure of 1,000 participating pastors, or about 0.3% of all congregations. So we're talking about penalizing 99.7% of congregations based on the actions of a infinitesimally small number of nutjobs. And that would include a host congregations who support progressive values.

And here's the other thing. I like my politics free of religion and I like my religion free of politics. If you start taxing churches, then it's Katie-Bar-The-Door for religious intrusion into the political process. They're paying taxes, so they've literally "purchased" the right to be involved. If you thought Citizens United was a bad idea (and I suspect you do), this has the potential for being even worse.

[quaker bill]

10. It was tried and it was worse, much worse

some laws are still on the books as a hangover. The entire notion of a state licensed marriage was a child of the church-state in England. At one point in England, say 400 years ago now, the church was the state and the state was the church, thus the name "church of england". The tithe was a tax and the clergy were civil servants. Now marriages were licensed by the state and could only be performed by the state ordained clergy. Getting married in the church required regular attendance and payment of the tithe.

Anyone who did not get married in the state church had "bastards" for children who by law had no right to inheritance of their parent's property or funds, which passed to the state upon their death.

It really was this bad. You could go to prison or be executed if you did not believe, attend and tithe.

There is a reason the founders chose separation, and it was not for protection of the church. It was for the protection of the people and their government.

[tanyev]

7. The pastor heading up this effort was on Colbert last night.

I thought Stephen did a masterful job in handling him. I feel Colbert usually handles religious topics much better than Jon Stewart does.

[Initech]

9. If they want to preach politics and hate, they pay. End of story.