May 10, 2008

Conservative group urges churches to break law

The Alliance Defense Fund, a legal attack group for Christian conservatives and enemy of LGBT groups.

Here’s how the ADF explains it:

The Alliance Defense Fund announced a new initiative Friday that will challenge the tactics of groups that use the Internal Revenue Service to intimidate churches and pastors into silence on important issues of the day.

Now, under the IRS code, churches and pastors can distribute voter guides, run registration drives, hold forums on public policy and invite politicians to speak at their congregations. They can not, however, endorse a particular candidate or argue for or against one.

This last bit is what the ADF is trying to have changed. Their plan is clever. Urge churches to ignore the rule, get punished by the IRS, and then sue. The other side is that, if the IRS doesn’t enforce it, then the churches get to ignore the rule.

The solution, really, is much easier. Remove the ‘tax-exempt’ windfall for churches – and they can campaign all they want. Of course, the ADF wants churches to be treated like churches for tax purposes, but not have any other ‘rules’ apply.

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Posted by Henry at 01:46 PM || Link to me || More Thoughts (0) || Track this post (0) || Category:: The Way Right, Just Left on