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Loosening the regulations on pulpits and politics—or tightening them?
What the tax code clearly demands is that churches not "participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office." A measure recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives would amend the code to make sure that pastors could make political statements as private citizens, and would allow up to three "unintentional violations" of the candidate endorsement rule a year.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) got the House Ways and Means Committee to add the text to the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, explaining to The Washington Post that it aims to "meet the concerns" of Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr. (R-N.C.), author of last year's failed Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act.

Jones also introduced that bill this year, but it won't get out of the House Ways and Means Committee. Jones's bill goes much further than the Hastert text, called the Safe Harbor for Churches provision since there's no "three strikes" rule. (Weblog can't link to the Safe Harbor text directly, so click here and scroll down to "Sec. 692."). Jones's bills simply allow all political speech in the "content, preparation, or presentation of any homily, sermon, teaching, dialectic, or other presentation made during religious services or gatherings."

While Jones's bill received wide support among politically conservative religious organizations, there's hardly a peep from such groups this time around. And bad news for Hastert: The one peep so far is negative. A letter from Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, is quoted in today's Washington Post as opposing the Safe Harbor provision. The bill's language, Land is quoted as writing to House Republican leaders, is "loose enough that it could be interpreted to broaden the restrictions" on pulpit politicking instead of loosening such restrictions. "This is a case in which the cure is worse than the disease," Land said.

Exactly what Land opposes about the bill is not reported by the Post, but a spokesman for Jones's office explains that the congressman's opposition to the provision is based on the penalty section. The bill, the spokesman explained to the Post, "could increase Internal Revenue Service scrutiny of churches by creating a graduated set of penalties for violating the rules on political activity. At present, he said, the IRS must make an 'all or nothing' decision: Either strip a church's tax exemption or leave it alone."

An article in today's Washington Times suggests that the ACLJ supports the Safe Harbor text, but isn't clear (the article is already outdated, since it doesn't include Jones's opposition).

Here's the political reality: When there's not broad support from the constituency a provision is supposed to mobilize, when there's active opposition from the other side of the aisle, and when it's criticized by the congressman it's supposed to "meet the concerns" of, that provision is as good as dead.

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June (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48