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September 8, 2008, 02:16 PM ET
Religious Officials Oppose Move by Churches to Challenge IRS
A group of Christian and Jewish clergy members have organized to oppose a move by some churches to break Internal Revenue Service tax laws by giving politically explicit sermons, reports The Washington Post.
The Alliance Defense Fund, a socially conservative nonprofit legal consortium in Scottsdale, Ariz., is taking on the IRS by asking several dozen pastors to give sermons on September 28 in which they openly endorse or oppose political candidates.
Under the IRS code, nonprofit, tax-exempt entities may not “participate in, or intervene in, … any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office.”
The Alliance Defense Fund wants to trigger an IRS investigation into the churches where the sermons are given; the group then plans to challenge in federal court whether the government has the right to deny clergy members a chance to speak out freely.
Christian and Jewish leaders opposing the Alliance Defense Fund’s effort will petition the IRS to stop the protest before it starts and investigate the fund’s tax-exempt status, reports the newspaper. The clergy members, who are supported by a former IRS lawyer, Marcus S. Owens, are also calling on churches to give sermons on the separation of church and state on September 21.
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