Right-wing group urges churches to abuse tax-exempt status

The Alliance Defense Fund, a right-wing legal defense organization, continues its unbroken streak of legal hooliganism!

This crew of crackpots is known mostly for its frivolous lawsuits against public universities in which they demand that religious groups receive special treatment and cry that antidiscrimination policies violate the First Amendment. Now they're encouraging churches to abuse their tax-exempt status by endorsing candidates in partisan elections.

It's not illegal for houses of worship to endorse candidates. But, under IRS rules and a 1954 law, they can't keep their tax-exempt status if they do. No other organization can keep their tax-exempt status for issuing endorsements, so why should churches be any different?

It's also clear the rule is selectively enforced. Little action is taken against pastors who endorse conservative candidates, but the government collects evidence that ministers endorse candidates who are (by today's standards) moderate or liberal. (The IRS and Bush's Justice Department went after a California church after the government searched newspapers for stories of ministers with antiwar views.) This despite the fact that the IRS isn't supposed to act on these cases until there's a citizen complaint.

Despite all this, the Alliance Defense Fund still insists the IRS's regulation is nothing but a government conspiracy to persecute conservatives. So they're encouraging right-wing pastors to endorse candidates in an effort to challenge this rule. The ADF's babyish protest is scheduled for Sunday, September 28. They're hoping at least one church gets a complaint against it, so they have a test case to have the IRS policy ruled unconstitutional by the courts.

Go for it, geniuses. The rule is hardly ever enforced against conservative pastors anyway, so what's there to lose? One of the reasons there's been such a strong Republican trend in recent years is that conservative ministers tell their congregations they're going to hell if they vote for the "wrong" candidate. All these churches have been allowed to stay tax-exempt, so for them, it's already as if the IRS rules don't apply.

(Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121029464937179517.html)