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Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., has offered a bill that would repeal the law that now prevents churches from engaging in any political activity without losing their tax-exempt status.
The “Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act,” HR 2357, would remove from the Internal Revenue Code a 47-year-old law that has prompted some churches to avoid distributing voter guides or even taking positions on moral issues such as abortion that may be debated in political campaigns.
“This legislation removes the threatening hand of the IRS and extends the freedoms of the First Amendment to all houses of worship in America – as was the case in this country from its founding until 1954,” Jones told Human Events. “All too many churches have been so chilled by the present language of the 501c(3) portion of the IRS code that they refuse to make important moral, ethical or scriptural statements that may touch on current political campaigns, or from permitting others to do so from their premises and their pulpits.
“To remove this fear and anxiety and permit houses of worship to engage in an ‘insubstantial’ amount of activity that may be regarded as ‘political’ simply follows the pattern of allowing such organizations to engage in an ‘insubstantial’ amount of direct lobbying activities. And it was part of the American tradition until 1954.”
Jones says that houses of worship engaging in political activity ceased to be “part of the American tradition” because of Lyndon B. Johnson. As Senate Democratic leader in 1954, Johnson added an amendment to the IRS code banning “nonprofit” groups from participating in “any political campaign on behalf of any candidate.”
“This was done with a floor amendment, and there were no hearings or any congressional debate on the merits or reasons for this ban,” said Jones. “LBJ’s target was never churches or religion but nonprofit conservative organizations.”
Yet the so-called “LBJ Law” has been used ever since to bring to heel churches in which pastors speak or act in ways that could be deemed “political.” In 1995, for example, the IRS stripped the tax exemption of the Church at Pierce Creek in Vestal, N.Y., for running full-page ads in USA Today and the Washington Times saying: “Bill Clinton is promoting policies that are in rebellion of God’s law. … How then can we vote for Bill Clinton?”
Last September, Americans United for Separation of Church and State sent letters to more than 285,000 churches, telling them not to distribute Christian Coalition voter guides and warning them that such distribution may violate IRS rules.
Interestingly, this element of the IRS code has not been aggressively enforced against church leaders who permit Democratic office-seekers to address their congregations from the pulpit. According to research by the American Center for Law and Justice, the IRS compiled more than 562 examples of Democratic candidates’ appearing in African-American churches between 1987 and 1994. But not one lost its tax-exempt status.
Jones insists that no church should ever be punished for expressing a viewpoint that could be deemed political.
“The issue is whether houses of worship, like any other American institution, will enjoy the same freedom of expression they did up to 1954,” said Jones. “That freedom was why deTocqueville wrote that America is great because America is good.”
So far, 85 congressmen have cosponsored Jones’ bill.
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