I’ve been meaning to talk about this topic and continually forgetting, so forgive me for being a little out of date. The Richard Dawkins Foundation (for Reason & Science, to complete its unwieldy title), among many other outlets, reports on the latest attempts by the GOP to kill the Johnson Amendment, which I’ve written about before – short form, it’s the law that prohibits churches which have tax-free status from advocating for specific political candidates. Here’s the Dawkins Foundation:
Republicans repeatedly have failed to scrap the law preventing churches and other nonprofits from backing candidates, so now they are trying to starve it. With little fanfare, a House Appropriations subcommittee added a provision that would deny money to the IRS to enforce the 63-year-old law to a bill to fund the Treasury Department, Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies.
First of all, it seems to me that this sort of attack on the law – and that’s what it is – is dishonorable and below the dignity of good-hearted legislators. The fact of the matter is that Congress once decided that the passion and fury of religion should be muted when it comes to politics, for otherwise disaster may come of it. If Congress wishes to retract this judgment, it may do so – but to try to remove the funding for this law, even if it’s only rarely enforced, is underhanded.
