{"id":37456,"date":"2019-11-03T21:37:46","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T02:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=37456"},"modified":"2019-11-03T21:37:46","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T02:37:46","slug":"losing-our-first-amendment-rights-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=37456","title":{"rendered":"Losing Our First Amendment Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, The Christian Post<\/a> posted an article about a bill recently signed into law in New York State.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed a bill into law that prohibits churches and other nonprofits from campaigning for or against political candidates.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cuomo signed Senate Bill S4347<\/a> last week, creating a state-level equivalent to the current federal Johnson Amendment, which bans electioneering among nonprofits.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a statement released last Wednesday<\/a>, Cuomo said he felt the law was necessary in response to efforts by the Trump administration to weaken the Johnson Amendment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFor too long we have listened to the Trump administration threaten to remove common sense protections prohibiting tax exempt organizations from engaging in inappropriate political activities,\u201d Cuomo said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNew Yorkers have a right to free and fair elections, and this law will further protect our democracy from unjustified interferences once and for all.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also known as Assembly Bill A623<\/a>, the bill amended the state tax law to say that\u00a0 nonprofit organizations, religious or secular, cannot participate in \u201cany political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article reminds us:<\/p>\n

In May 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order which, among other things, called for the federal government to stop enforcing the Johnson Amendment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“In particular, the Secretary of the Treasury shall ensure, to the extent permitted by law, that the Department of the Treasury does not take any adverse action against any individual, house of worship, or other religious organization on the basis that such individual or organization speaks or has spoken about moral or political issues from a religious perspective,” stated Section 2 of the executive order<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite the executive order and Trump saying on multiple occasions that he eliminated the amendment, it still has not been officially repealed<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The First Amendment states:<\/p>\n

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.<\/strong><\/p>\n

People do not give up their First Amendment rights because they enter a church.<\/p>\n

The article also includes a quote by Ryan Tucker of the Alliance Defending Freedom:<\/p>\n

Ryan Tucker of the Alliance Defending Freedom took issue with Cuomo\u2019s signing of the law, writing in a New York Daily News opinion piece last week that the state government was \u201ccracking down on political speech.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the minds of New York lawmakers, a group can only speak freely if it pays the government extra for the privilege of doing so. That type of financial coercion may pay for a payroll increase in Albany, but it will sideline the roles of both secular and religious charities,\u201d\u00a0Tucker wrote<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cCuomo\u2019s comments are wrong. The government can\u2019t condition your tax-exempt status with the surrender of your First Amendment rights or any other constitutionally protected freedom.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

That is a very interesting way to look at this. Why should churches give up their right to speak out on political issues that are relevant to spiritual life simply because they are tax exempt?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, The Christian Post posted an article about a bill recently signed into law in New York State. The article reports: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed a bill into law that prohibits churches and other nonprofits from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12382,621,2205,1862,3401,12383,8897,11002],"class_list":["post-37456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christian-post","tag-constitution","tag-first-amendment","tag-first-amendment-rights","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-johnson-amendment","tag-nonprofit-organization","tag-trump-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37457,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37456\/revisions\/37457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}