Religious Right Groups Want Pastors to Cross the Partisan Line and Spark Court Showdown

For years, Religious Right groups have complained about the federal tax law that forbids houses of worship and other tax-exempt groups to intervene in political campaigns by endorsing or opposing candidates.

Several organizations pushed Congress to change the statute, without success. The Religious Right suffered another setback in 2000, when a federal appeals court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of the tax law.

Now the nation’s best-funded and most prominent Religious Right legal group is gearing up for another go in court – once it finds a plaintiff who will knowingly break the law and spark an Internal Revenue Service penalty.

The Wall Street Journal reported May 9 that the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has started a campaign to urge pastors to discuss candidates for public office from the pulpit, hoping to spark a new test case. The ADF, founded by James Dobson and other religious broadcasters in 1993, claims that about 80 ministers have expressed interest so far.

The newspaper reported that the ADF “hopes 40 or 50 houses of worship will take part in the action, including clerics from liberal-leaning congregations.” Erik Stanley, the ADF’s senior legal counsel, claims that dozens of religious leaders have already expressed interest in taking part in the Sept. 28 event, dubbed “Pulpit Freedom Sunday.”

One of them is the Rev. Steve Riggle, senior pastor of Grace Community Church in Houston.

“The government should not be telling the church what it should or should not be saying,” Riggle said. Riggle told The Journal that he announced from the pulpit in March that he was supporting former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in the Texas Republican primary.

“As a pastor, a private citizen, I can speak for myself,” Riggle said. “The IRS cannot quench my voice.”

Riggle later used church letterhead to endorse a Republican candidate in a special congressional election, an action that led Americans United for Separation of Church and State to file a formal complaint with the IRS.

Americans United also condemned the ADF plan.

Said AU Executive Director Barry W. Lynn, “This is a truly deplorable scheme. Federal tax law rightly requires churches and other tax-exempt groups to use their resources for religious and charitable purposes, not partisan politics. When the faithful put their hard-earned dollars in the collection plate, they don’t expect it to wind up pushing some politician’s campaign.

“The Religious Right leaders who lust for political power in America will apparently stop at nothing, not even the sacred character of the church,” Lynn continued. “The vast majority of clergy do not seek to turn their incense-filled sanctuaries into smoke-filled political backrooms.

“I think very few clergy will yield to the Alliance Defense Fund’s worldly temptation,” Lynn said. “And those who do will find their churches’ tax exemptions in jeopardy. I assume the ADF will provide a list of congregations unwise enough to join this move, and we’ll be ready to report those churches to the IRS.”

Lynn said clergy know they are free to speak out on religious, moral and political issues. But they cannot use tax-exempt resources to support or oppose candidates for public office, which includes statements from the pulpit by church officials and other indications of campaign intervention.

The ADF is apparently coordinating its scheme with other Religious Right organizations. On April 22, Kenyn Cureton, the Family Research Council’s vice president for church ministries, appeared on Religious Right activist Janet Folger’s “Faith2Action” radio program, discussing his organization’s plans for mobilizing pastors this year. Cureton, a former official with the Southern Baptist Convention, vowed to urge pastors to “cross the line.”