Conservative web site
http://newsbusters.org/node/2766
Christian Blogger Fisks LA Times Article on IRS Inquiry of Liberal Sermon
Posted by Ken Shepherd on November 10, 2005 - 16:52.
Ted Olsen in a posting today to the Christianity Today weblog provides a
detailed fisking of Los Angeles Times coverage of an IRS investigation of
the Rev. George Regas, a liberal Episcopalian priest. Regas, the former
rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, delivered a
sermon which was sharply critical of President Bush the Sunday before
election day, October 31, 2004.
Olsen finds it remarkable that the Times found this particular IRS
investigation worthy of coverage, given the flood of complaints filed from
both sides of the political spectrum from election season 2004:
But remember that tattletaling to Uncle Sam was a bit of a popular meme
back in November. You had Americans United for Separation of Church and
State trumpeting its complaints to the IRS over Ronnie Floyd's First
Baptist Church of Springdale, Arkansas, the Roman Catholic Diocese of
Colorado Springs, and others. The Mainstream Coalition was making headlines
for sending spies into conservative suburban Kansas City churches, and
groups like Rat Out a Church sprung up either to parody the efforts or to
counter them with IRS complaints from the Right.
In other words, the IRS got slammed with untold scores of complaints
about inappropriate endorsements from pulpits.
Olsen ultimately concludes that in the end various political actors,
conservative and liberal, get something out of the attention from the LA
Times story, including the Times itself which "get[s] to splash this on
their pages and sell copies to outraged readers on the Left and the Right."
Given the bent of the LA Times, I'd venture that the audience the editors
were going for was the Left, although right-of-center evangelical
Christians are also annoyed at potential IRS gagging of church pulpits come
election season.
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Posting and reading from alt.politics.usa.constitution OR alt.education
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the U.S. and a couple from overseas as well]
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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