The bill of rights is a list of restrictions on the state by very definition.
Tax-exempt charities are prohibited from using tax-exempt funds to engage in certain kinds of political speech. Those that do electioneer or conduct lobbying, for example, have separate non-tax-exempt branches that handle it, with their own funds and strict financial firewalls separating them from the rest of the organization.
Churches, on the other hand, get to flout those rules all the time. And I do mean churches; other religions don't tend to enjoy quite the same latitude.
And that selective enforcement by the government is a separation of church and state issue.
The state should reflect the ethics of the people. Religious morality is a type of speech.
This is immaterial but just in case anyone assumes anything: I'm not personally religious.
Some skirt that line very closely.
MLK was a Baptist minister.
You are mixing up three things as if they are the same. Opinions are fine.
But no, churches cannot run political campaigns. They are exempt as a religious organization, and in the U.S., religious organizations, like charitable organizations, exempt from income tax cannot participate in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to a candidate for public office.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was an American citizen capable of supporting any candidate he liked. His church was not. His church was, however, as all churches are today, able to lobby. Lobbying is not campaigning. Also, they were and are able to speak out for or against executive actions of the government. Doing so is neither lobbying nor campaigning; office holders are neither legislators nor campaigners; they are actually in office.
The only thing that prevents them from doing that is that they are a 501(c)(3). The Johnson amendment requires they not be politically active.
However, if a church decides to register as a 501(c)(4) they absolutely can endorse or condemn candidates tax free.
So why aren't they 501(c)(4)s? 501(c)(3) allows you to deduct contributions to such and organization from your taxes. 4 only gives a break to the organization, not their donors.
You either misunderstand or misstated. The entire reason they are protected is because of their political speech. They aren't supposed to be actively endorsing, funding, or participating in campaigning for a politician. Most everything else is fair game.
If you are funding a political campaign (not just any political speech, but an actual campaign) you have to be set up as a political campaign rather than a church.
> 1954, Congress approved an amendment by Sen. Lyndon Johnson to prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations, which includes charities and churches, from engaging in any political campaign activity. To the extent Congress has revisited the ban over the years, it has in fact strengthened the ban. The most recent change came in 1987 when Congress amended the language to clarify that the prohibition also applies to statements opposing candidates
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/charities-churches-and-politics....
In practice, churches are given quite a bit of leeway to engage in what any reasonable person would call political campaigning.
The statement is correct there but it’s not a constitutional thing it’s an IRS thing.
If nothing else it would keep them from actually saying "You must vote for X" and diplaying electoral posters.
It could even happen that somebody high in a decision chain ends up claiming "we don't care they can do whatever they want" which could be a minor scalndal.
You can’t, because the IRS steadfastly refuses to pursue these violations. I’m an active lifetime member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation; and through our organization these near-constant occurrences of political endorsement by churches have been reported numerous times. To no avail.
To make matters worse, clergy in the U.S. often receive a large portion of their income as a housing allowance which is not taxable, as I understand it. But the majority of course still take their mortgage interest deduction. It’s a racket.
The question becomes: Are the umbrella organizations paying the ministers just the bare minimum to keep them on? So if the tax breaks are stopped, will the church organization cover the new difference, or lose the ministers?
It might still be a racket where the ministers are also getting screwed. The benefit of the tax breaks may not go to the minister who receives the tax break, but instead benefit the archdiocese/convention/council/conference/synod/assembly/convocation/etc who pays
(Some Protestant churches do have national structures, true, but you’re not often hearing about Lutherans doing things)
But even if everyone tollerates the authorities turning a blind eye to the issue many would not tollerate the autorities making it an official policy or slipping up and saying stuff like "a church could run for office for all I care".
The state is protecting churches in ways it should not; you likely cannot defeat this protection, but you can put pressure on the state so that it will be harder/riskier to keep doing it.[1]
[0] at a trend level, or at least for the well connected churches with armies of lawyers.
[1] I must warn that this is close to declaring a war (on a very small scale) and as such you could come out in a worse position than when you started.
I grew up in the south and have been in different churches for most of my life. Outside of supporting soldiers and an occasional American flag in church I’ve only seen a preacher get political once in my entire life. Even that was roundabout too.
Yep.
Anti-Trump Example #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtrxQyf4XrM
Anti-Trump Example #2 (church leader was correctly fired for this): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h098Z6g6pCE
Anti-Democrat Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1AlrvZr95k (Threatens to exile people who vote Democrat from the church)
Anti-Biden/Harris Example: https://www.newsweek.com/pastor-greg-locke-says-biden-demon-...
Pro-Trump/Pence Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d24BfefW8M
Local politics example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAcHN-dqpSc
I picked a variety for illustrative purposes. But there's a bit more to the stories: https://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/29320-ffrf-sues-tru... This type of "using the official church to endorse/condemn specific candidates and parties" happens all the time, and isn't limited to national politics.
From the size of a parking lot to whether a browser can be included in an OS. To express an opinion on such things is an act of political activism.
Abortion, gun contol, vim. Which one is not political? Which one is not a matter of religion?
I'm also open to discussions of a flat tax and abolishing food tax and lots of other tax ideas. Including allowing tax deductions for charitable giving and tax exemptions for lots of things. I'm ok with allowing some, but I see the room for abuse. We'll never eliminate all abuse and we'll never get everything exactly fair. But we can keep making tweaks in the never-ending pursuit.
If we are talking about law, you are right - the US limits on religious groups getting involved in politics are in the tax code, not in the establishment clause. If they are willing to give up their taxation privileges, they are allowed to participate in politics as much as they like. And, since the tax code is just a statute, Congress could change it to allow them to meddle in politics without losing those tax privileges, and I doubt such a tax law change would be held to violate the establishment clause.
However, “separation of church and state” is also an extralegal principle. And, maybe, too much involvement of religions in politics violates that extralegal principle even when it doesn’t violate the letter of the law.
Then read OPs comment. compare the general, nonuniversal statement they made about political advocacy vis a vis tax status laws in the United States, to the judgements you envisioned of religious people and yourself and your religion.
The government setting itself up as "god" and interfering with religious liberty is a bit of a Rubicon.
I realize this doesn’t apply directly to taxation but we defer to religion in multiple ways in the law.
https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?re...
The ongoing societal cratering about us will only be hastened by levying taxes on them.
But perhaps that's the goal?
Religious institutions may be some kind of glue, but certainly not a moral one.