Should IRS Investigate Church's As Political Operatives

[Jon8503]

As Bush has so closely aligned himself with different religious organizations and I know how Jerry Falwell & others came into Kansas and Missouri rallying support for their candidates. I feel Church's are not merely just a place to go for worship anymore. I know though others that they are organized and work for conservative religious candidates. This is crossing the line on their tax exempt basis. If the IRS can investigate the NAACP on this charge, the Church's are every bit as guilty.

[rfranklin]

1. At whose behest?

Will Bush order the IRS to investigate?

Keep dreaming!

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Plan B: citizens can petition and then sue a federal agency to do its job

The IRS can be forced into investigating, say, Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia and potentially remove its tax exempt status. Jerry Falwell should have stuck to the Gospels according to Christ.

[Ganja Ninja]

3. Yes they should but ..

I don't have even the slightest bit of hope that Bush and the GOP would ever allow an investigation. And if ever there was an investigation nothing would come of it, It would be repressed and ignored.
No part of the progressive agenda will be advanced until the current neo-con infatuation has run it's course. We're stuck in a twilight zone until we come to whatever disaster awaits us. You'll be able to recognize when this is coming to an end by the civil unrest so wait for it.

[LisaLynne]

6. I'm ready for a little civil unrest myself.

Where do I sign up?

[ScreamingMeemie]

4. Damned straight they should. As a member of the Catholic Church

when I received the glossy (i.e. expensive) brochure urging me to vote against my fellow Americans re the marriage amendment, and thought back to their supposed "financial troubles", it made me sick. How can they afford to put out something like this to every member of the archdioceses? Screw them and their pseudo-Christianity.

[tsuki]

5. Pensacola Christian College,

Start with them. Escambia County, Florida, set up a polling place their and the PCC Fellowship of Thuggery threatened and harassed Kerry/Edwards voters while the Escambia County Sheriff's Deputies watched.

How did they know who was going to vote for Kerry? I guess God was pointing them out.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

7. It's already been started against the Archdiocese of St. Louis

(Oct. 26) ST. LOUIS – A Catholic abortion rights group is asking the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Archdiocese of St. Louis and halt any further attempts by the archdiocese to influence the Nov. 2 election.

The Washington-based Catholics for a Free Choice filed a complaint with the IRS on Tuesday, saying the archdiocese violated its status as a public charity under federal tax laws.

The complaint says St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke has "explicitly urged Catholics" to vote against certain candidates and has "clearly crossed the line into political intervention." Officials at the archdiocese declined to comment.

The complaint takes issue with Burke's Oct. 1 pastoral letter, published in the archdiocesan newspaper, "The St. Louis Review," which forbids Catholics to vote for candidates who support abortion rights, euthanasia, reproductive cloning, gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research – what Burke calls the five "intrinsic evils."
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More: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20041026-1345-catholics-abortion.html

[blondeatlast]

8. The Lounge has been restored to its sacred positon in DU,

may I respectfully request that posts such as these go to GDLight?

Thanks much.

[DemWitch]

9. If the NAACP can be investigated by the IRS

becasue of pointing out the many and various fuck ups of the Bush administration, then yes, Churches should be investigated.