This past Wednesday the Freedom from Religion Foundation filed a federal lawsuit against IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman for allowing churches to endorse candidates while remaining tax exempt. According to the FFRF, this “constitutes preferential treatment to churches and religious organizations that is not provided to other tax-exempt organizations.” Regardless of the outcome, the church-state watchdog is quite right about one thing: churches have been electioneering, and they’ve been doing it for quite some time.
Church in the Valley urged its members to “VOTE FOR THE MORMON, NOT THE MUSLIM! THE CAPITALIST, NOT THE COMMUNIST!”; Ridgway Christian Center in Colorado instructed its to “Honor God! Love Your Country! VOTE REPUBLICAN!”; while church bulletins of St. Catherine of Siena in New York included a pro-Romney message from former U.S. ambassadors to the Vatican. The 1500 congregations supporting Pulpit Freedom Sunday, which included Black churches, endorsed an array of local, state, and federal candidates. And they’ll continue to do so.
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