Timothy Johnson,
In response to your article posted on July 7: My partner and I were legally married in Canada in April. We had never felt so validated as we did when we heard the chaplain say "I now declare you legally married". Unfortunately we had to return to Minnesota where the religous right have politicians in their pockets. The religious right does not respect Separation of Church and State. Have you ever experienced being told that you have no rights to even visit the one you love while they were in the hospital? Have you ever even had to worry whether it would be your "spouse" who would be the one making decisions for you because you were unable to make those decisions yourself? or some distant relative that you don't even know? I have had to face these issues all because of the word "marriage". If that one word is so precious to you, why don't you push to make marriage a religous term with no legal ties? The legal bond could be called, maybe a "civil union"? It would simply be a legal contract. Welcome to my world!

Rev. Johnson,

The IRS 501c3 exemption requirements for an organization state that such an organization "may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates."
http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=96099,00.html

The way I read your piece, you have certainly crossed the spirit if not the letter of that requirement. Do you stand ready to forfeit your organization's tax emempt status so that you may continue to attempt to influence legislation from your pulpit?

WW, you won't always be welcomed there. And Peter's not really joking; those that disagree simply aren't welcome. Been there; done that. And I won't be going back.

"I yam what I yam". - Popeye
As I have stated numerous times, I post under my real name EPFC.
I have never had a post pulled from this site and I have never been warned.
Do you know why? I think it's because I have never written anything to warrant such action. You can go through the archives and check.
Welcome William!

The only one complaining and ranting is you. Get over it. We know your liberal and if anyone has a dissenting view point you are all over them Henchwoman. I have voted democrat in the past, so keep your labels to yourself. Your true colors really show through in your posts.

Ok, Peter, let's return to this thread for a while. And I apologize to one and all for having put two topics in this thread: the first, of course, is the issue of gay marriage, and the second is the (unfortunately related) issue of political speech from the pulpit. I want to get back to the first topic, but having raised the second, let's give that a go, too. As it turns out, it is not unimportant. It in fact will reveal a deep hypocrisy coursing the Republican platform, which, as a Republican, I am ashamed of and want to see corrected.

So...here is what you wrote above, Peter:

Churches derive their tax exemption from the Constitution...that's not just my opinion; it's the understanding of the U.S. Supreme Court [supposedly expressed in Walz vs. Tax Commission of the City of New York]

First of all, your statement is just factually wrong. Walz in no way provides a Constitutional protection for tax exemption to churches. Walz says, rather, that state laws providing tax exemption to churches are not themselves unConstitutional. As Mr. Chief Justice Burger writes (delivering the opinion of the Court):

It appears that at least up to 1885 this Court...accepted without discussion the proposition that federal or state grants of tax exemption to churches were not a violation of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment. As to the New York statute, we now confirm that view.

That is a far cry from saying that tax exemption itself is a Constitutional right. In fact, quite the opposite: it clearly implies that the question of tax exemption is NOT covered by the Constitution, being left, rather, to federal and state laws. Nowhere in the ruling does a Justice argue that regardless of what the State of New York may or may not have legislated, Walz's complaint was unwarranted because "the Constitution guarantees tax exemption to churches."

Erik Stanley, the Senior Legal Counsel for the "Alliance Defense Fund" (ADF, http://www.alliancedefensefund.org), the noble group who sponsored the recent "Pulpit Freedom Sunday" (http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/story.aspx?cid=4690), makes the following statement:

"Churches were completely free to preach about candidates from the day that the Constitution was ratified in 1788 until 1954. That’s when the unconstitutional rule known as the 'Johnson Amendment' was enacted."

http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/story.aspx?cid=4690

I hope Mr. Stanley does not think that Walz will back his claim. Walz, you see, will cut both ways. When Walz concludes that federal and state grants of tax exemption are not themselves unConstitutional, the clear corollary is that the federal and state governments may legislate as they will on the matter. The Johnson Amendment thus is NOT unConstitutional, despite Mr. Stanley's assurances.

I suspect that many a pastor understood this instinctively. That is why the initiative got only THIRTY ONE pastors on board (http://www.telladf.org/UserDocs/PFSparticipants.pdf). (To the shame of us all, Minnesota had two of these.) Using Wikipedia's count of churches in America (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States), that means that a whopping 0.01% of pastors decided to take Mr. Spencer's outfit up on their dare with the IRS. Unfortunately, I don't think we will yet have the pleasure of seeing these brave founts of God's Truth and Political Recommendation get their comeupance. My understanding is that the IRS is going after the ADF itself, giving the misguided pastors a stern talking to for now. Pity.

Well, I could go on. For example, in Mr. Justice Brennan's concuring opinion with the Chief Justice, he argues that there are "two basic secular purposes for granting real property tax exemptions to religious organizations." The first is the ostensible good that these organizations do that would otherwise have to "be met by general taxation" (a point, to which, I think many would have serious skepticism), and the second is that (get this!) these organizations "contribute to the pluralism of American society." Good grief! How much more of a stretch can you ask for than to argue that screaming fundamentalists have secular value for the PLURALISM they foster? Pluralism is the LAST thing these intellectual and spritual titans in God's army are preaching. But whatever.

You see, what's so REALLY interesting about Walz is simply that you and the ADF cite it. Why is this interesting? Well, let's start by taking a look at a comment Mr. Chief Justice Burger makes in Walz. He remarks on a dissenting opinion from Mr. Justice Jackson in a previous case, where Mr. Justice Jackson is "perplexed" when the Court upholds the Constitutionality of state tax dollars being spent to bus students to a religious school. Burger writes:

One can sympathize with Mr. Justice Jackson's logical analysis but agree with the Court's eminently sensible and realistic application of the language of the Establishment Clause.

"Sensible and realistic"? What does that have to do with anything? Well, all things being equal, the sensible and the realistic are desirable, right?

Wrong, say we Republicans.

You see, we Republicans, platform-wise, are opposed to a thing we call "judicial activism."

Judicial activism is a grave threat to the rule of law because unaccountable federal judges are usurping democracy, ignoring the Constitution and its separation of powers, and imposing their personal opinions upon the public. This must stop.

http://www.gop.com/2008Platform/GovernmentReform.htm#9

This is not new. Remember Judge Robert Bork? "A judge who announces a decision must be able to demonstrate that he began from recognized legal principles and reasoned in an intellectually coherent and politically neutral way to his result," Mr. Bork writes in The Tempting of America. Against this, Mr. Bork warns, we are under constant temptation to succomb to the "politization" of the law. We the people, he says, "are told that the choice is between a cold, impersonal logic, on the one hand, and, on the other, morality and compassion." But this is a lie! (according to Bork) Justices *should* use cold logic to reason to their results, since their duty as un-elected officials is simply to apply the law. It is the duty of *elected* officials to ensure that morality and compassion are encoded in the law (so we the people can throw the bast*rds out if they put too much morality or compassion in, I suppose). So the story goes, anyway.

Do you see how this relates to Mr. Chief Justice Burger's remark in Walz? Burger REJECTS the dissent that was based on LOGIC. He instead adopts the SENSIBLE and REASONABLE. Walz, in other words, IS AN EXAMPLE OF JUDICIAL ACTIVISM! (And folks, fast forward from Walz just three years, and you will see the same Mr. Chief Justice Burger presiding over and concurring with the grand-daddy of all cases that conservatives will decry as legislating from the bench. You bet: Roe.)

So here's the bottom line: the whole notion of "judicial activism" is a complete and utter fiction. The conservative battlecry against it is hypocrisy at its highest. Witness conservatives embracing Walz for the protection they (wrongly) think it will provide, but oh, woe, what an awful example of legislating from the bench, they will say, was Roe. Folks, Walz and Roe stand or fall together. They are both results premised on the idea that the law of the land must be teased out of the Constitution by our most brilliant men and women through an arduous process of precedent. If Roe is to fall because the notion of a "zone of privacy" is a judicial construct, then so must fall Walz, for where in the Constitution do we see any verbiage, for or against, regarding tax exemption? "Judicial activism" is simply a code phrase meaning "I don't like this result. And neither does Jesus."

Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy! This Party needs a cleanup.

That out of the way, back to the topic at hand: gay marriage. Once again, the Republican platform:

We call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it. In the absence of a national amendment, we support the right of the people of the various states to affirm traditional marriage through state initiatives.
http://www.gop.com/2008Platform/Values.htm#6

I am tired. It is nearly midnight, it's been a long day, but more than that, this statement, for its bigotry, drains my spirit empty.

Here's the Constitutional amendment I'd like to see:

People have inherent worth before the law, and no law shall be upheld in these United States that impinges upon human dignity under any circumstance.

No doubt such a statement will be regarded with fury from the pulpit and would not stand a chance.