Meant to write on this the other day. Now it seems like an appropriate follow-up to yesterday's story on Dobson's "confused theology". The Jewish Daily Forward:

As the presidential candidates prepare to compete for religious voters this November, some preachers on the Christian right are vowing to test longstanding tax rules that inhibit politicking from the pulpit.

The Alliance Defense Fund — a legal outfit launched by James Dobson and other prominent conservatives in the mid-1990s — has recruited 50 pastors to deliver sermons in September that will include direct endorsements of political candidates. Although churches and other religious groups, like all not-for-profits, are required by law to eschew partisanship in exchange for their tax-exempt status, ADF’S Pulpit Initiative advances a premise yet to be fully tested in the courts: that religious leaders speaking from the pulpit should benefit from special speech protections.

“The only thing that should be dictating to pastors what they can and cannot say is the Bible, not the Internal Revenue Service,” said Gus Booth, a Minnesota pastor who has endorsed Republican Senator John McCain from his pulpit. The idea that church and politics don’t mix, he told the Forward, “hasn’t actually always been that way.”

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the ADF is double-dog daring churches to step over the line of Separation:

A conservative legal-advocacy group is enlisting ministers to use their pulpits to preach about election candidates this September, defying a tax law that bars churches from engaging in politics.

Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz., nonprofit, is hoping at least one sermon will prompt the Internal Revenue Service to investigate, sparking a court battle that could get the tax provision declared unconstitutional. Alliance lawyers represent churches in disputes with the IRS over alleged partisan activity.

The action marks the latest attempt by a conservative organization to help clergy harness their congregations to sway elections. The protest is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 28, a little more than a month before the general election, in a year when religious concerns and preachers have been a regular part of the political debate.

...

Alliance fund staff hopes 40 or 50 houses of worship will take part in the action, including clerics from liberal-leaning congregations. About 80 ministers have expressed interest, including one Catholic priest, says Erik Stanley, the Alliance's senior legal counsel.

Translation: we're hoping to partisanize conservative congregations, since who knows how many Justice Sundays did squat for us before. The law is quite settled here, and IRS complaints take a long time to settle, much less litigate. So the legal effect for 2006 is basically nil, meaning this is a political maneuver.

Oh yeah, and this is crap:

The section of the tax code barring nonprofits from intervening in political campaigns has long frustrated clergy. Many ministers consider the provision an inappropriate government intrusion, blocking the duty of clergy to advise congregants.

I have yet to meet a pastor who feels this way. Responsible ministers understand that the First Amendment does as much or more to protect their congregations than it does to muffle their voice. More important, they understand that the mission of the church is to be the church, not an adjunct to a political movement.

C. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance had a statement on the ADF's move that seems on-the-money:

Houses of worship belong to divine authority – they are not the property of either political party.  The Alliance Defense Fund’s call for pastors to break the law represents the height of irresponsibility.  They are putting churches across the country unnecessarily at risk to costly and time-consuming investigations that could result in harsh financial penalties.  Putting churches in legal and financial jeopardy seems a bizarre way of defending religious freedom, which the ADF claims to defend.

But there is an even greater issue at stake in this campaign than violating the law.  When religious leaders endorse candidates from the pulpit, they weaken both the sanctity of religion and the integrity of democracy.  The IRS allows – and the Interfaith Alliance encourages – religious leaders to speak out on the important political issues of the day, but when clergy endorse specific candidates or parties in their official capacity, they abuse their pastoral authority.

Damn skippy.

Well it looks like I'm going to have to pay a little more attention to the products I purchase at the grocery store. Buy the wrong item and I might risk my money going to support right-wing Christian hate groups. I certainly wouldn't want that to happen. Would you?

Theocracy at the Grocery Store
(Or, Mom, There’s a Dominionist Lawyer in my Juice!)
by Jennifer Emick