ADF Senior Counsel Erik Stanley, competing for a gold medal in hyperbole, says IRS regulations prohibiting tax-exempt organizations from campaigning for political candidates amounts to a government takeover of churches. Groups like Americans United that support this rule, he says, "would argue and agitate for government-controlled churches."
Huh? Setting rules for tax status amounts to a demand for government control?
By this argument, that would mean organizations like AU (and the BJC) that support the wisdom of this rule must also want the government to control the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, and every other nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization in America, all of which are required by the IRS to refrain from electioneering for exactly the same reason that churches are: to maintain the integrity of their tax exemptions. In fact, by Stanley's logic here, AU must want the government to control…AU! As a 501(c)(3), they refrain from endorsing candidates themselves, and don't seem to regard that as government control.
Every church in the country has the option of refusing the tax exemption they enjoy, and endorse away. There is no legal barrier to pastors getting up in front of their congregations and telling them how to vote, other than churches take on themselves by accepting the privilege of tax exemption. And as Stuart Whatley notes at The Huffington Post, that tax exemption is not free to America. The country has a right to set certain boundaries in return, and refusing to allow organizations to become tax havens for de facto political machines would seem to be a reasonable one.
In fact it is the tax exemption itself that helps keep the IRS out of the business of churches.
