We haven’t heard much lately about the Internal Revenue Service‘s (IRS) targeting of conservative groups, but Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial yesterday illustrating another aspect of IRS involvement in the 2012 election.
The article explains:
At the same time the IRS harassed Republican nonprofit groups during the 2012 political campaign, it selectively advised black churches and other Democrat nonprofits on how far they can go in campaigning for President Obama and other Democrats.
…U.S. tax code prohibits churches and other nonprofits from “participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.”
The ban includes donations, endorsements, fundraising or any other activity “that may be beneficial or detrimental to any particular candidate.” In the past, black churches have been known to pass out voting guides to members in violation of IRS rules.
Washington constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley at the time blogged that the special campaign training session offered these Obama supporters — with the direct participation of the IRS chief and attorney general — was a “raw” display of political favoritism.
“If (former GOP Attorney General) Alberto Gonzalez went to Congress to brief evangelical religious leaders on campaigning in the presidential election, the hue and cry would be deafening,” Turley said.
Non-black clergy were not afforded the same legal training in campaigning tactics by the Obama administration.
First of all, I have very mixed emotions about the whole idea of churches not being allowed to be politically involved. Theoretically, the church is the moral backbone of America and should be allowed to speak out on political or moral issues that impact America. The law that bars political speech in the church was enacted by Lyndon Johnson in response to a political opponent who was getting support in local churches–it has nothing to do with the U.S. Constitution. In fact, if you study American history, you find that the church has often spoken out about political and moral issues in the past.
The uneven enforcement of the law is one of the major aspects of the Eric Holder Justice Department and the politicized IRS. It is time to remove these people from Washington and return America to a place where all men are equal under the law.
