Religious Quote of the Day

From Pastor Cary Gordon in Iowa who has had a complaint filed against him with the IRS because he's actively promoting the ouster of three Iowa Supreme Court justices who voted to legalize gay marriage in that state:

"I have never, nor will I ever, get a message from the Holy Spirit and then go check with the IRS tax code first to see if it's okay to preach it," he states. "I'm tired of pastors submitting to this tyranny -- and I'm expecting to try to get the IRS to sue us so that we can take it all the way to the Supreme Court and restore freedom in America's pulpits."

This could end up being an important case. As it stands now non-profit organizations are not allowed to play partisan political roles (though we know organizations like the NAACP do it all the time, usually through a shadow organization).  Democrats campaign in churches every election cycle without repercussions for the churches, but let a church endorse a conservative candidate or cause and look out!

The concept of "separation of church and state" is not found anywhere in the Constitution.  Let me give you a little background on it from the Wikipedia entry:

The concept of separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion on the one hand and the nation state on the other. The term is an off-shoot of the original phrase, "wall of separation between church and state," as written in Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists Association in 1802. Jefferson was responding to a letter that the Association had written him. In that letter, they expressed their concerns about the Constitution not reaching the State level. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution did not yet exist, thus leaving the States vulnerable to federal legislation. In Jefferson's letter, he was reassuring the Baptists of Danbury that their religious freedom would remain protected - a promise that no possible religious majority would be able to force out a state's official church. The original text reads: "...I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."[1] The phrase was quoted by the United States Supreme Court first in 1878, and then in a series of cases starting in 1947. The phrase appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution.

There's more at the link.

Liberal judges and anti-religious activists have used this phrase to justify all kinds of prohibitions on activities by religious organizations and I'm not sure any of it is actually constitutional. Where things get complicated is where tax law comes into play.

Pastors are free to preach anything they want from their pulpits, including politics, but they do it at the risk of losing their tax-exempt status. Loss of such a status could have a devastating financial effect on a church which relies on tax-deductible contributions for most if not all of its finances. If congregants can't take the deduction some would undoubtedly choose not to give or would give elsewhere. And the church could find itself having to pay income taxes on whatever they do take in.

However, I'm not sure a constitutional case can be made for withholding a tax-exempt status from a church under any political circumstance.  The Constitution seems pretty clear that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.


I'd kind of like to see this get to the Supreme Court to see what might come of it.