While religious organizations and associated 501(c) 3
charitable organizations are not prohibited from having political positions and
being on the side of one issue or another, the IRS has restrictions on their
supporting one candidate or opposing one actively. But some preachers are
scoffing at this and risking their churches all for the sake of a ridiculous
idea that church needs to be this involved with politics as opposed to the more
imminent issues, like saving souls or spreading the gospel. Not that I believe
in souls or the value of the so called “good news”, but I think I’ve made that
apparent enough. Bottom line, there are a number of reasons churches don’t need
to push this envelope, notwithstanding the IRS effectively ignoring them so as
not to give them any real publicity beyond what they already have. Supposedly
the standards of audits are complicated and the potential legal implications
are what may be primarily hindering any enforcement. The only other solution is
to enact sweeping changes and enforce them more stringently. If the IRS doesn’t
do something about this, it’s going to encourage this emerging movement of
borderline theocrats thinking that we need to run this country by religious
morals and standards instead of using reason and secular standards that
everyone can abide by without infringing upon individual rights to believe
nonsense. The law protects your right to practice religion even if it also says
that the right itself is not absolute. This sort of practice needs to be nipped
in the bud or it will just spiral into something worse than a remotely harmless
resurgence of religiosity, but actual political confrontations by people both
tightly and loosely affiliated with these antiquated traditions motivated by
mob rule and peer pressure to try to ask for special treatment. No one wants to
limit religion more than necessary, but you can’t ignore the law when it’s
convenient to you and this is no different than politicians trying to get lesser
sentences because of their previous contributions to society. Religion may have
benefits, but it doesn’t get tax breaks and also make political statements that
directly involve it with secular and civil election processes. Keep your
theology out of the government and we’ll make sure the government stays out of
your theology.
This practice of taking on the IRS and its threat of
removing tax exempt status for churches has been going on for nearly 4 years
and nothing seems to have been done. If anything, it behooves them to start
focusing on this issue because the taxes that could be gained from those
churches would be a benefit to deficit issues in this country. Outright
removing the tax exempt status for all churches might be too extreme, but
enforcing the law about political involvement as regards candidate approval and
disapproval with these churches could aid in lowering the U.S.’s crippling
deficit that looms over us according to many conservatives. Freedom of religion
is not so absolute as to allow those in positions of authority as spiritual
leaders to flaunt the law in the spirit of what can be a reasonable practice of
associating political decisions with personal faith and convictions, and taking
it too far in directly campaigning from the pulpit against or for a particular
candidate. Of course, one might argue that churches which don’t get involved in
politics in any sense might be justified in at least getting some tax breaks,
even if it was made mandatory for all churches to pay some portion of taxes.
Those that are especially political might not get those cuts, but that would be
a choice they’d make from the start. It shouldn’t be such a big deal for mega-churches
to keep preaching politics or even advocating for candidates as long as they
keep getting money. And wouldn’t it be a good thing for Christians to support
the U.S. with money from their churches, especially if they’re all about the
U.S. being a “Christian nation”?
The Catholic groups railing against the
contraception mandate in the healthcare plan put forward by President Obama are
another group that is pushing their protections under the law. When they say
Obama is anti Catholic in his positions and then urge their congregations to
vote their “conscience”, it’s not as explicit, but it’s certainly able to be
interpreted as preaching party politics. I wonder what they expect Catholics to
vote for instead. If Mormonism is a cult and/or false Christianity, then can
Catholics truly vote for Romney either, unless voting one’s conscience means
ignoring dogma that explicitly states the church in question is against the
true church’s teachings? This concern with insurance plans covering birth
control and such creating a conflict of religious ethics and secular law seems
to be blown out of proportion, especially with evidence pointing towards the majority
of Catholics actually using birth control anyway. Of course they don’t get
abortions, but if you don’t want to cover abortions, one might be justified in
saying you have a right to refuse coverage for it under the plan. But birth
control has other benefits besides the prevention of a particular stage of
reproduction, namely fertilization (implantation prevention is a whole other
treatment), such as preventing STDs and in terms of hormonal birth control,
evening out one’s menstrual cycles and aiding with other issues such as painful
menstruation or inconsistent menstruation. I’ve noted this before in “Catholics,Contraception and Conscience,”;
birth control can be justified in terms of an overall healthcare plan as it has
medical benefits aside from what the church has a person moral objection to. It
isn’t compromising their religious freedom overall and will not necessarily
escalate to anything further in simply saying you have to provide what is
considered basic medical care even if you personally object to it. And wouldn’t
it be better off to prevent unwanted pregnancies than to cause undue suffering
to children you feel morally obligated to bear and then are unable to provide
adequately for them?
Is it really clashing between freedom of religious
exercise/expression and separation of church and state when you enforce what is
a fairly simple rule of not endorsing or attacking political candidates from
the pulpit? You can speak politics in general, but not be partisan about it,
which is partly what the IRS is worried it will appear when it cracks down on
the offenders. But you’re just being fair in applying the law to those who
break it. You shouldn’t play favorites merely because the offenders in question
are in a special position by cultural perspective. Religion does not deserve
favors because it supposedly helps people be more moral or any such thing: in
fact, since it does such things, it shouldn’t ask for more in the government’s
treatment of it. Stay within your limits and no one will rock the boat of your
sensibilities about politics and faith. Until next time, Namaste and aloha
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