Sociology > Education > Ohio Clergy Ask IRS To Derail Religious Right’s Church-Based Political
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Sociology > Education |
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| Date: |
11 Mar 2006 09:55:12 AM |
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Ohio Clergy Ask IRS To Derail Religious Right’s Church-Based Political |
Buckeye Backlash
Ohio Clergy Ask IRS To Derail Religious Right’s Church-Based Political
Machine
http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8003&abbr=cs_
[excerpt]
by Jeremy Leaming
The more he heard and read about the involvement of two central Ohio
pastors in the state’s 2006 political campaigns, the more the Rev. Eric
Williams, pastor of a Columbus church, became concerned over meddling by
influential religious leaders in politics.
Since early last year, national and statewide media have noted the efforts
of evangelical pastors Russell Johnson and Rod Parsley to rally like-minded
religious leaders throughout the state to elect as governor Ohio Secretary
of State Kenneth Blackwell, an avid supporter of the Religious Right
agenda.
“All of the public activities of both groups have highlighted one
candidate,” Williams told Church & State. “There is a clear pattern of
electioneering activities that are greatly compelling and raising our
concerns that these churches are not behaving as churches.”
[end excerpt]
***************************************************************
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 US and a couple from overseas as well]
***************************************************************
.. . . 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)
.. . .
****************************************************************
USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
****************************************************************
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Ohio Clergy Ask IRS To Derail Religious Right’s Church-Based Political |
19 Mar 2006 03:59:00 PM |
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On Sat, 11 Mar 2006 10:55:12 -0500, wrote in
alt.atheism
Buckeye Backlash
Ohio Clergy Ask IRS To Derail Religious Right’s Church-Based Political
Machine
http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8003&abbr=cs_
[excerpt]
by Jeremy Leaming
The more he heard and read about the involvement of two central Ohio
pastors in the state’s 2006 political campaigns, the more the Rev. Eric
Williams, pastor of a Columbus church, became concerned over meddling by
influential religious leaders in politics.
Since early last year, national and statewide media have noted the efforts
of evangelical pastors Russell Johnson and Rod Parsley to rally like-minded
religious leaders throughout the state to elect as governor Ohio Secretary
of State Kenneth Blackwell, an avid supporter of the Religious Right
agenda.
“All of the public activities of both groups have highlighted one
candidate,” Williams told Church & State. “There is a clear pattern of
electioneering activities that are greatly compelling and raising our
concerns that these churches are not behaving as churches.”
[end excerpt]
Ohio and national media have reported that Johnson and Parsley are
staunchly behind Blackwell, a vehement supporter of a successful 2004
ballot initiative to amend Ohio’s Constitution to ban gay marriage and a
long-time supporter of laws restricting reproductive rights. (See
“Armageddon in Ohio,” Church & State, June 2005.)
Williams’ concern regarding the pastors’ activities on behalf of
Blackwell spurred his involvement in the filing of a complaint with the
Internal Revenue Service.
In a 14-page complaint to the IRS, Williams and 30 other religious
leaders accused Johnson and Parsley of inappropriately intervening in
the gubernatorial campaign on behalf of Blackwell and said their actions
should prompt an investigation into whether their churches’ tax-exempt
statuses should be revoked.
“Over the past two years,” the Jan. 15 complaint states, “the foregoing
entities (collectively, the ‘Churches’) have sponsored, hosted and
funded a variety of activities that appear to be designed to promote one
particular political party and one specific candidate for statewide
office.
“The activity [of Johnson and Parsley] rises to the level of three types
of tax law violations,” the complaint continues “(i) endorsing a
gubernatorial candidate at Church events, (ii) conducting voter
registration drives designed to promote one party and a specific
candidate; and (iii) coordinating and funding the distribution of
biased voter education guides.”
The group, led by Williams of the North Congregational United Church of
Christ in Columbus, includes rabbis and Christian leaders of an array of
denominations including, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal and
Lutheran.
Their complaint to the IRS details the actions of Johnson and Parsley
through their respective churches and affiliated entities. The complaint
notes that time and again the pastors have promoted Blackwell’s campaign
for governor. Blackwell is facing State Attorney General Jim Petro, and
according to the complaint, Petro has never been included in events
sponsored by Johnson and Parsley.
Johnson and Parsley are also using their houses of worship and
affiliated groups to conduct voter registration campaigns and distribute
“biased voter ‘education’ materials to solidify support for Blackwell,”
states the religious leaders’ IRS complaint.
In a Jan. 22 editorial by the Akron Beacon Journal, titled “Their one
and only,” Johnson and Parsley are blasted for using their churches and
affiliates that “feature one candidate in the race for Ohio governor, J.
Kenneth Blackwell, the secretary of state.”
The editorial also criticized Blackwell for being “too willing to ride
the religious wave to the governor’s office.”
Williams, in an interview with Church & State, said that he had become
particularly concerned about the political rhetoric employed by Johnson
and Parsley during the 2004 general elections. Those concerns, he said,
have heightened with the pastors’ efforts in the new campaign season.
Williams added that he appreciates the role houses of worship can play
in public policy debates especially around issues.
But he said the actions of Johnson and Parsley are turning their houses
of worship into political operations.
“We want to compel churches to be churches,” he said. “I believe the
melding of government and religion is taking place here, which hurts our
country’s system of the separation of church and state. I think the
church and state have been served well by that system.”
Rabbi Harold J. Berman told The New York Times that he signed on to the
IRS complaint because “government is clearly impaired when churches get
too actively involved in government, and I think religion gets impaired
when government acts in religious affairs.”
The IRS prohibits houses of worship and other 501(c)(3) organizations
from using their resources to advance or oppose a candidate’s bid for
public office. Churches and other non-profit groups, however, are
allowed to engage in issue advocacy. Such status provides houses of
worship and other non-profits exemption from income taxation and
donations to those entities are tax deductible. Political organizations,
however, do not receive such tax breaks. The IRS can revoke non-profits’
tax-exempt status or levy fines against them if they are found to have
engaged improperly in campaigns for public office.
The efforts of Johnson and Parsley have received support from Religious
Right leaders, such as Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, Family
Research Council president Tony Perkins and TV preachers Pat Robertson
and Jerry Falwell.
Not long after the Ohio clergy’s complaint to the IRS became public,
Robertson’s son, Gordon, the co-host of the “700 Club,” derided the
action by the Ohio clergy and repeated a Religious Right canard that the
First Amendment does not provide for a separation of church and state.
On the Feb. 3 “700 Club” broadcast, Gordon P. Robertson ended a segment
on the Ohio situation with a tirade of sorts on the First Amendment
principle of church-state separation.
“It’s incredible the brainwashing that’s happened in America today,”
Robertson said. “Where a pastor can literally stand in front of a camera
and say that any political action, whether it’s against abortion or for
traditional marriage, is somehow unconstitutional because the church has
now violated the separation between church and state.
“It’s absolutely incredible,” he continued. “That is brainwashing.
There’s nothing in the Constitution, there’s no phrase that talks about
the separation of church and state.”
Like his father, Gordon Robertson was long on rhetoric and short on
facts. The Ohio clergy’s complaint to the IRS did not claim that Johnson
or Parsley had violated the First Amendment. The complaint charged that
the pastors had endangered their organizations’ privileged tax status.
The complaint also did not accuse the churches of speaking out on issues
but for pushing a candidate.
The rift in Ohio over religion and politics is the latest among several
similar controversies that have caught media attention in other parts of
the country.
In Pasadena, Calif., and Miami, churches have also been questioned over
their involvement in political campaigns.
Late last fall, the IRS announced an investigation into a speech given
by the former pastor of Pasadena’s All Saints Episcopal Church only a
couple days before the 2004 presidential election. The church’s former
rector, the Rev. George Regas, gave a homily called “If Jesus Debated
Sen. Kerry and President Bush,” in which Bush was lambasted on a number
of fronts. Coming only days before the election, the sermon could be
seen as an endorsement of Kerry’s campaign.
Contacted by reporters, Americans United noted that clergy of all
political persuasions must understand and abide by federal tax law.
“Non-profit status is a privilege, not a right,” said the Barry W. Lynn,
executive director of Americans United. “Turning our nation’s churches
into cogs in a political machine violates the integrity of religion and
undercuts the fairness of the democratic process.”
In Miami, an attorney for Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, told
reporters that the IRS has indicated that it will not punish the
church for an event it conducted in October 2004 that appeared to be a
pro-Kerry rally. Since federal law prohibits the IRS from commenting on
an investigation or its outcome, however, it is impossible to verify the
attorney’s claim.
It might also be difficult to discover whether the IRS investigates and
takes action on the complaint filed by the mainstream religious leaders
in Ohio against pastors Johnson and Parsley. Both pastors, however, have
defended their actions in light of the complaint and have shown no signs
of altering their projects.
Johnson’s Ohio Restoration Project (ORP), which was originally announced
last summer via a letter posted on his Fairfield Christian Church’s Web
site, has been conducting sessions statewide before friendly
congregations to train them how to register voters and spread the
message of a nation in dire need of godly politicians. The ORP now has
its own Web site, which details its aspirations for the 2006 statewide
elections, including goading churches into providing forums for socially
conservative candidates like Blackwell, advertising and distributing
voter guides.
“Our nation was founded on godly principles,” Johnson told a gathering
of 500 clergy at a late summer ORP-sponsored conference in Kings Mill,
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported. “The warfare in our culture has been
over the future of America’s spiritual health. We must not sit on the
sidelines. We must act.”
Parsley is founder of an expansive evangelical ministry just outside
Columbus, which includes a 12,000- member church, the World Harvest
Church, whose Sunday services are broadcast worldwide, a religious
elementary school and a Bible college.
The pastor has also created a Religious Right lobbying group, the
Center for Moral Clarity (CMC), and late last year a group called
Reformation Ohio with similar goals as Johnson’s group, including the
registering of 400,000 voters. The New York Times reported in January
that Parsley incorporated Reformation Ohio as a church. Parsley has also
appeared at and is supportive of Johnson’s ORP.
At an Oct. 14 kick-off of Reformation Ohio at the Ohio Statehouse in
Columbus, Parsley was joined by two of Congress’s most influential
voices for the Religious Right, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Rep.
Walter Jones (R-N.C.), as well as Blackwell.
Before a gathering of about 1,000, Parsley, who The Plain Dealer, a
Cleveland daily, has described as the “master of the military
metaphor,” sounded a message of urgency.
“This vision of our country’s founding generation and the inspiration of
our great reformers of the past are colliding with unprecedented moral
decay and cultural decline,” thundered Parsley. “Today we come to
declare a new movement that is an answer to the crisis of our times.”
The Akron Beacon Journal described Reformation Ohio, whose Web site
contains brief, general details of the group’s agenda and pictures from
the Oct. 14 launch, as a “$30 million campaign to sign up souls for
Christ and the voting booth.”
The Reformation Ohio Web site proclaims that it is a “groundbreaking
initiative determined to bring the Buckeye State what it needs most –
the love of Jesus Christ.”
According to the site, Reformation Ohio will seek to convert “at least
100,000” Ohioans by distributing more that a million Bibles to them, to
help the poor “through acts of kindness and generosity” and to “increase
the state’s voter registration rolls by at least 400,000 persons.”
Both Johnson and Parsley have also provided their respective churches
for places promoting their restoration and reformation projects.
The opposition religious leaders’ complaint to the IRS notes that
Blackwell has been involved in or featured at seven events conducted at
the evangelical pastors’ churches or sponsored by their affiliated
projects and that Blackwell is scheduled to appear at the groups’ future
events.
For example, Johnson’s ORP sponsored luncheons in two cities last fall
before large audiences of pastors where Blackwell was the featured
speaker. And earlier this year Blackwell was the featured speaker at
another ORP luncheon, which according to The Columbus Dispatch, was
attended by 450 pastors.
In the spring, the ORP is planning on “Ohio for Jesus” advertising,
which is to include 30-second radio spots highlighting Blackwell.
Additionally Johnson’s group is now raising money for an ORP rally to be
held at a 20,000-seat stadium in Columbus, where national Religious
Right leaders, such as Dobson and the Rev. Franklin Graham, are
scheduled to speak. Blackwell is also to appear at the event.
Parsley’s World Harvest Church has hosted prominent socially
conservative firebrands, such as polemicist Ann Coulter and former
senator Zell Miller, to extol Blackwell’s candidacy. In the Ohio
religious leaders’ complaint to the IRS, they note that Blackwell
attended an August service at World Harvest Church, where Miller, from
the pulpit, proclaimed that Blackwell, seated in a front-row pew, was
“the kind of leader this state – any state – needs.”
Johnson, Parsley and Blackwell all reacted defensively and angrily to
the publicity surrounding the IRS complaint.
Parsley, who according to The Columbus Dispatch and The Plain Dealer
has contributed money to Blackwell’s campaign, blasted the 31 pastors
who signed the complaint and initially were anonymous as a “consortium
of liberal clergy.”
At a Jan. 20 World Harvest Church press briefing, Parsley dubbed the
pastors the “anonymous 31” and said they were trying to muzzle his
groups’ work by “media manipulation and intimidation, and we simply will
not be silenced by those tactics of fear.”
Parsley, who has also attracted national media attention and has been
described as an emerging televangelist in the mold of the TV preachers
Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, told the Associated Press that, “I am
neither Republican nor Democrat – I’m a Christocrat.”
Johnson at his ORP’s Jan. 17 pastors’ luncheon also maintained that the
complaint would not intimidate his group, saying the complaining pastors
were waging a “secular jihad against expression of faith.” At that same
event, Blackwell also sounded a defiant and rather shrill tone.
“You tell those 31 bullies,” Blackwell blustered to the Religious Right
audience, “that you aren’t about to be whupped.” The Columbus Dispatch
reported Blackwell added that “political and social forces are trying to
run God out of the public square.”
Pro-separation pastor Williams told Church & State that the rhetoric
emanating from Johnson, Parsley and Blackwell was “colorful and
divisive” and primarily used to divert attention from the complaint to
the IRS.
“I worry,” Williams said, “that when they blend church and state, my
religious liberties will be at risk.
“I mean, what is a Christocrat in a land of democracy?” Williams said
referring to Parsley’s description of himself. “Ultimately these groups
want the entire state to subscribe to their religion.”
At a Jan. 25 press conference at his church, Williams released the names
of the pastors who signed the letter asking the IRS to investigate the
actions of Johnson and Parsley. He also said that the group of concerned
pastors had grown to 33.
Williams was joined at the press gathering by more than 20 of the
pastors who signed the complaint. Several of them explained that they
signed the letter as individuals, not as representatives of their
denominations or congregations.
The Rev. Kim Keethler Ball, pastor of an American Baptist church, told
the press that she, like Williams, was concerned that Johnson and
Parsley were doing great damage to the principle of church-state
separation.
“As American Baptists, one of our core values, like the other traditions
here, is that we value separation of church and state,” Ball said.
She added that when she told her congregation about her involvement in
the complaint she received “a round of spontaneous applause.”
Although he has received some negative e-mails, Williams told Church &
State that by more than two-to-one the responses he has received have
been supportive.
“I can say that the vast majority have been extremely positive,”
Williams said. “We have received positive feedback in our religious
communities, from our colleagues and from the general public.”
© Americans United for Separation of Church and State
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a cornucopia of splinters.
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