Bishop orders Priest to preach for Romney

[TigerJ]

I guess this is becoming a huge issue!
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Pulpit politics: Pastors endorse candidates, thumbing noses at the IRS

With the presidential election a dead heat and many other races too close to call, hundreds of religious leaders nationwide are urging their congregations to vote for a specific candidate. They break the law when they do so — that's the point — but it's unclear whether there's any real penalty for pastors who make such endorsements from the pulpit.

About 1,600 pastors across the country violated a 58-year-old ban on political endorsements by churches in October by explicitly backing political candidates in their Sunday sermons, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom of Scottsdale, Ariz., a conservative Christian legal organization behind a campaign called Pulpit Freedom Sunday.

The 1954 law they are challenging prohibits charitable groups, including most churches, from making candidate endorsements, but doesn't bar ministers, priests, rabbis and imams from speaking out on other ballot issues, like voter initiatives, or organizing get-out-the-vote drives and education efforts around elections themselves.

The alliance is seeking to force a court showdown over the constitutionality of the law, violation of which can cost churches their tax-exempt status. Since Oct. 7, the original Pulpit Freedom Day, many pastors who participated in the protest have posted their remarks online or sent them to the Internal Revenue Service, essentially daring the agency charged with enforcing the prohibition to put up or shut up.

So far, the IRS has done the latter.


http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012...t-the-irs?lite

Yeah, I recently got an email, urging me as a pastor to join that movement. I declined. For me it's not so much that I think it's wrong from a legal perspective. The constitution never declares any intended restriction on what churches do politically. It only restricts what the state may do with respect to religion. It may neither make laws respecting the establishment of a religion, nor may it prevent the free exercise thereof. My objection is that we don't have aclear directive in the Bible that we should suport a particular political perspective. Thus, while I may have my own political perspective, one of my parishioners may have a different political perspective. I don't have a God given reason to tell him/her that my perspective is right and his/hers is wrong.

[ICRockets]

Yeah, I recently got an email, urging me as a pastor to join that movement. I declined. For me it's not so much that I think it's wrong from a legal perspective. The constitution never declares any intended restriction on what churches do politically. It only restricts what the state may do with respect to religion. It may neither make laws respecting the establishment of a religion, nor may it prevent the free exercise thereof. My objection is that we don't have aclear directive in the Bible that we should suport a particular political perspective. Thus, while I may have my own political perspective, one of my parishioners may have a different political perspective. I don't have a God given reason to tell him/her that my perspective is right and his/hers is wrong.

The US Constitution doesn't have as much to do with it as one might think, at least not the way I see it. The Constitution is a pact with tax-paying citizens. You have rights, we protect them, you give us money. But those rights can be edited slightly if the government tells you you aren't required to pay taxes. As part of that agreement, some aspects of your rights are necessarily curbed.

[TigerJ]

The US Constitution doesn't have as much to do with it as one might think, at least not the way I see it. The Constitution is a pact with tax-paying citizens. You have rights, we protect them, you give us money. But those rights can be edited slightly if the government tells you you aren't required to pay taxes. As part of that agreement, some aspects of your rights are necessarily curbed.

I get the gist of what you're saying. We don't have the right to do anything that it's possible we might want to do. We don't have the right to say or write whatever we want if we want to commit libel for instance. We don't have the right to assemble in the middle of the field at the Ralph on Sunday afternoon at 1 PM (we'd need to satisfy ourselves by assembling in the stands, or at a tailgate party beforehand). If the only thing in life that makes you happy is drinking a pint of whisky and then going for a joy ride in your convertable, you're just going to have to be unhappy. I wonder if you could expound on what you are saying in the bolded sentence. I'm assuming you are referring to the church not being taxed, and you are specifically suggesting that the government can add restrictions on what the church can do because we are not taxed. Am I correct? That obviously is the position of the IRS. Personally, I would like to see that idea tested in the US Supreme Court. That probably is what the group advocating preachers endorse a candidate for president is ultimately after. The problem with the government adding restrictions to non-tax paying religious groups is the issue of degree. You may or may not have heard of the United Methodist Church in Virginia losing its tax exempt status because the pastor refused to marry a gay couple on his own (the preacher's) property. Obviously, somebody thought they could tell the church what to do in that situation.

[gebobs]

You may or may not have heard of the United Methodist Church in Virginia losing its tax exempt status because the pastor refused to marry a gay couple on his own (the preacher's) property.

Sure haven't. I'm all ears.

[Discotrish]

Well at least he isn't preaching for the pro-abortion pro-gay marriage guy.

Patti

[TigerJ]

I had heard of a Virginia case a while back. I'll have to look for it. Here is an older case of a New Jersey church that lost property tax exemption over the issue. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/ny...rove.html?_r=0

[gebobs]

I had heard of a Virginia case a while back. I'll have to look for it. Here is an older case of a New Jersey church that lost property tax exemption over the issue. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/ny...rove.html?_r=0

I know about that one. What about it?

[gebobs]

Well at least he isn't preaching for the pro-abortion pro-gay marriage guy.

You mean the pro-individual, government-out-of-my-life-and-my-bedroom-guy? No, that is antithetical to the current Catholic hierarchy and a big reasson why they are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

But have fun with your mythology!

[TigerJ]

I've done some checking and the Virginia case appears to be an "Urban myth" as I cannot substantiate it. The New Jersey case apparently happened because the church which owned to property invited the public to use it. Two lesbian couples sought to have their civil unions blessed and the church denied use of a church owned beach front pavilion for that purpose. The couples then sued and the state decided to revoke the church's property tax exemption. The court ruled that to deny use for the blessing of civil unions contstituted discrimination under the church's own policy to allow public use.

[TigerJ]

I wonder about the public use issue. The church I currently pastor owns 14 acres of land behind our building. I'm not sure why they church acquired it before I came. It is part of the flood plain of the small river that flows through town. Because it is subject to flooding, the state DEC has ruled that we can build nothing on it. We can't bring any material into the area unless we remove an equal volumn of some other material. About all we can do is use it for some recreation for Vacation Bible Schools, Youth activities etc. The problem we have is that other people use the land without permission. We've found ample evidence of outdoor drinking parties, and ATV usage. While we know we probably can't prevent such usage, I worry about liability. Suppose a kid gets badly hurt or killed as a result of either the drinking or ATV usage (or both at the same time). I believe the church's blanket insurance policy covers that, but could our lack of aggressive efforts to prevent unwanted use of the land be interpreted as tacet approval of public use, which then could be used by a gay couple, wanting to get married in a natural setting, to sue us if we deny permission???

[mysticsoto]

I wonder about the public use issue. The church I currently pastor owns 14 acres of land behind our building. I'm not sure why they church acquired it before I came. It is part of the flood plain of the small river that flows through town. Because it is subject to flooding, the state DEC has ruled that we can build nothing on it. We can't bring any material into the area unless we remove an equal volumn of some other material. About all we can do is use it for some recreation for Vacation Bible Schools, Youth activities etc. The problem we have is that other people use the land without permission. We've found ample evidence of outdoor drinking parties, and ATV usage. While we know we probably can't prevent such usage, I worry about liability. Suppose a kid gets badly hurt or killed as a result of either the drinking or ATV usage (or both at the same time). I believe the church's blanket insurance policy covers that, but could our lack of aggressive efforts to prevent unwanted use of the land be interpreted as tacet approval of public use, which then could be used by a gay couple, wanting to get married in a natural setting, to sue us if we deny permission???

I was talking to somebody recently about a similar situation. I think if you have signs that say no trespassing and they come in anyway, then you are not liable. Of course, it's probably best to talk to a lawyer about these sorts of things...

[IlluminatusUIUC]

I wonder about the public use issue. The church I currently pastor owns 14 acres of land behind our building. I'm not sure why they church acquired it before I came. It is part of the flood plain of the small river that flows through town. Because it is subject to flooding, the state DEC has ruled that we can build nothing on it. We can't bring any material into the area unless we remove an equal volumn of some other material. About all we can do is use it for some recreation for Vacation Bible Schools, Youth activities etc. The problem we have is that other people use the land without permission. We've found ample evidence of outdoor drinking parties, and ATV usage. While we know we probably can't prevent such usage, I worry about liability. Suppose a kid gets badly hurt or killed as a result of either the drinking or ATV usage (or both at the same time). I believe the church's blanket insurance policy covers that, but could our lack of aggressive efforts to prevent unwanted use of the land be interpreted as tacet approval of public use, which then could be used by a gay couple, wanting to get married in a natural setting, to sue us if we deny permission???

I'm not a NY lawyer, but you're asking two different questions there. Could you be sued in tort? Potentially but unlikely, unless there was some obvious danger like an open mineshaft or something that you neglected to cover. But nobody has a "right" to use your land unless they acquire it by adverse possession (which they wouldn't) and so a gay coupld planning a wedding on someone else's property would be SOL.