Update: In Campaign Speech at Florida church, President Trump vows to take action on prayer in school
UPDATED Jan. 8, 2020: In troubling remarks during his January 3 campaign rally, President Trump cast the election as pitting “religion itself” against those who would attack it. He also made a mysterious promise to facilitate greater access to prayer in public schools “very soon,” but provided no details.
A Reuters report has excerpts:
In his speech, Trump… told attendees Democrats were waging war against religion.
“These angry radicals want to impose absolute conformity by censuring speech, tearing down crosses and symbols of faith and banning religious believers from public life.”
He got a big reaction from the crowd when he promised to bring religion into U.S. schools….
“Very soon I’ll be taking action to safeguard students and teachers’ First Amendment rights to pray in our schools,” Trump said….]
For more on how prayer is already protected in public schools, check out BJC’s one-page guide to religious liberty in public schools and additional resources on the topic.
Original post from Jan. 3, 2020:
A campaign rally for President Trump at an apostolic church in Miami is drawing scrutiny, including calls for the IRS to investigate due to the church’s tax-exempt status. The event launches the “Evangelicals for Trump” arm of the campaign. The church’s minister is “a member of a Trump’s inner circle of pastors,” according to a Tampa Bay Times report.
The King Jesus International Ministry, for its part, reiterates that it is a non-partisan organization and merely leased its 7,000-seat auditorium to the Trump campaign at a commercially reasonable rate, without providing any church resources or personnel to support the event.
While it is commonplace for candidates to attend church services during a campaign, it is surely unusual for a house of worship to host a full-blown campaign event. The Tampa Bay Times has more:
Maggie Garrett, the vice president of public policy at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said she couldn’t recall any previous candidate for president holding a comparable political event. Rather, it’s the latest instance of Trump flouting political norms and sprinting past a line that candidates traditionally run up to or sometimes stick a toe over.
“Trump is exploiting this church and allowing it to risk its tax exempt status in order to win a campaign,” Garrett said.
In a letter to the IRS requesting an investigation into the event, the Freedom From Religion Foundation emphasized that the pastor “urged his congregation to attend the political rally.”
Tax-exempt organizations – including houses of worship – are barred from engaging in partisan political activity for or against a candidate, though they may host candidate forums. As the Tampa Bay Times report notes, the IRS rarely takes action to enforce that ban on 501(c)(3) groups electioneering, known as the “Johnson Amendment,” but it remains an important marker of protection for congregations against politicization and exploitation.
BJC has been a leader in successfully protecting the Johnson Amendment against numerous attempts to repeal or weaken it. For more, see BJC’s Community Not Candidates resource page.
