In N.C., GOP Requests Church Directories

[Rose Siding]

The North Carolina Republican Party asked its members this week to send their church directories to the party, drawing furious protests from local and national religious leaders.

"Such a request is completely beyond the pale of what is acceptable," said the Rev. Richard Land, head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
....
Mears said the "Republican National Committee has completed a study on grass-roots activity that reveals that people who regularly attend church usually vote Republican when they vote."

"In light of this study's findings, it is imperative that we register, educate and get these potential voters from the pew to the ballot box. To do this we must know who these people are," the memo continued.

"I am requesting that you collect as many church directories as you can and send them to me in an effort to fully register, educate and energize North Carolina's congregations to vote in the 2006 elections," it said.

It added that the "North Carolina Republican Party holds your church's directory in strict confidence" and will not use it "to solicit church members for any other reason."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/17/AR2006021701978.html?nav=hcmodule

[saltpoint]

1. If churches yield congregants' addresses & phone numbers to the GOP,

they should lose their tax-exempt status instantaneously and should thereafter be hounded by any and all progressives for an abandonment of the principles of their own faith.

"Render unto Caesar those things which are Caesar's..." does not mean spread 'em for Karl Rove.

[KamaAina]

3. Ah, but the sleazeball repukes are using church *members*

to get what they want, making an end run around the obvious church-state separation issues involved in them asking the churches directly.

Huge difference. :sarcasm:

[saltpoint]

7. I understand. In that case then, I guess we'll have to go with Plan B,

which is the huge ditch and the earth-moving equipment...

[Greylyn58]

5. Speaking as a North Carolinian

This is absolutely outrageous and I totally agree. :grr: :grr: :grr:

ANY and I mean ANY CHURCH that sends this info to the GOP should immediately lose their tax-exempt status. Because for the time being--there is still a separation of Church and State(even if it is becoming more and more invisible) and once these churches cross that line they should be penalized.

And I mean slap them down ...HARD!!!!

:argh: Have I said today how much I hate these people!! They are killing our country!!!!

[saltpoint]

8. Greylyn58, it sounds as if we're definitely on the same page here.

The doggie in your signature field is a beautiful animal and OBVIOUSLY more intelligent than George W. Bush!

[Greylyn58]

14. Thank You for the compliment.

That's my boy Sheridan. He was around 3 years when that picture was taken. He just turned 10 years old in Dec.

And you're right...He could run circles around the Shrub mentally before burying his butt in a land-field somewhere(That's where most of his ideas deserve to be buried anyway).

[colorado_ufo]

25. Unfortunately

church members almost always get a copy of their church's membership directory. There is no way to prevent an individual member from sending his/her copy to the party of choice, for whatever purposes.

[Erika]

6. Karl Rove built a network with the far right-wing in 2004

by getting rosters of the southern fundamental churches.

He then was able to get them out to vote against rights for gays, and vote for W.

I, for one, am getting sick of churches taking political stands. Are they there for politics or for god's message to get out?

[saltpoint]

9. Good point, fair question. Rove is the coordinator of that

strategy that worked so well for the GOP.

I would love to see that strategy stopped in its tracks.

Rove's WAY over the line of both a democratic government and the tenets of the New Testament.

[teknomanzer]

22. Organized religion is a scam...

Churches should be taxed. Especially those damn mega-churches, think how much money could have gone to the needy... pure hypocrisy.

[MaraJade]

2. Can you say loss of tax exempt status?

:kick:

I knew you could!

Any church that complies with this clearly endangers its tax exempt status. The NC dems should play this to the hilt!
Churches have NO BUSINESS complying with any order like this.

[jarnocan]

12. How can we make this happen? INJUSTICE Sunday etc.!

I wondered so much about that! So many of the big churches that Support BU**SH** also get $ for religious based funding programs of dubious natures; even the Moonies.
I was told a small DFA group couldn't meet at a church because they might risk their funding status, and of course most of US have heard about pro-peace churches sometimes being pressured.
I am glad this made the newspaper and some Churches even seem to be standing against it.

[seafan]

4. NC GOP also "gathers lists of gun owners and military families."

William Peaslee, the party's chief of staff, told the Greensboro newspaper that Republicans also gather lists of gun owners and military families. "In doing voter registration, you always go to where you base is," he said. Peaslee did not return messages from The Washington Post yesterday.

[castiron]

10. GOP also gather consumer-ist data like who shops at

Cabela's, who buys guns, has subscriptions to Field and Stream. They're every bit as data-savvy as any marketing ass-corp. See the new Texas Monthly for an article to this effect (poorly written as it is.).

[tinymontgomery]

16. As a church goer and retired military

they can kiss my a**. If I find out that my church passed out my info it's so long and good by to them!!!!

[Crunchy Frog]

11. Some of these people are kind of paranoid types

who don't feel too easy about having their names listed on government directories (not that anyone should feel easy about having their affiliations with any organizations registered with organs of the government). Maybe this sort of thing will will end up backfiring by igniting these people's natural distrust of being kept track of by the state.

Quite apart from the fact that it's unconstitutional and it threatens the tax exempt status of churches.

[HuffleClaw]

13. didn't some church already get in trouble for something like this?

seems pretty blatant to me, but they've been really blatant with their actions lately it seems, likely because they've seen how their high officials have been acting criminally with impunity.

[CatholicEdHead]

15. A liberal church out west got in trouble for an "anti-war" sermon

The IRS rarely cracks down on this because it is "politically correct".

[HockeyMom]

19. Pray for PEACE

My Church says that all the time. I guess that goes against the USA's new policy of preemptive wars? Are we supposed to pray for WAR now? The new "religion" of war.

Makes me sick to my stomach.

[supernova]

17. This is monstrous!

I can't believe the state GOP is up to this crap. Well, oh yes I can. :grr: :grr:

Although the outcry against it is heartening. We'll just have to see in the coming weeks, what the response to it has been. If they get no or very few directories, then they will know that tactic doesn't work. I think trying to reason with them that it's immoral, unconstitutional and unconcionable is impossible. They just do things based on whether it works or not.

All I know is, if anybody turned over my church directory, I'd confront them directly over it.

[rocktivity]

18. Just inform your churches that if their names are submitted

they will stop supporting the church financially. That would solve the tax-exempt status problem, too!

:headbang:
rocknation

[leQ]

20. that last line says it all:

It added that the "North Carolina Republican Party holds your church's directory in strict confidence" and will not use it "to solicit church members for any other reason."

who in their right mind would believe that these GOPsters would not to use it to solicit members for donations? God, these people can't even tell the truth to church audiences.

[William Seger]

21. I'm on the National Republican Senatorial Committee mailing list

Twice, in fact. "Oddly enough," it's the two email addresses I used to register web domains.

Edited to add: Every emailing is professionally written propaganda piece signed by Elizabeth Dole and includes a solicition for money to "protect our Republican majority" in the Senate.

[ldf]

23. and why can't the dems have access to those very lists?

if they get them, we get them.

i think a lot of so-called christian folk, when presented with a rational comparison of what is christian-like behaviour, may actually opt to vote democratic.

we can use the same tactics as they.

AND they just makes them even more political, thereby more of a chance to lose their tax exempt status.

[winston61]

24. Uh, hello?!

The repukes have done this trick for years. Bible thumpers take the dogma seriously so when preacher man tell me somethin' it must be true. They get conned into voting for this filth because of 'values' and they'll vote against their own economic interest every time. I think it is going to take another 1929 to snap people back into reality. Maybe when they lose everything, they may snap awake and ask 'Duh- how dis happen?' Maybe we really do have the government we deserve.