BUSH CAMPAIGN TRYING TO GET CHURCH MEMBERSHIP DIRECTORIES

The WashPost reports that:

The Bush-Cheney reelection campaign has sent a detailed plan of action to religious volunteers across the country asking them to turn over church directories to the campaign, distribute issue guides in their churches and persuade their pastors to hold voter registration drives.
[...]
"We strongly believe that our religious outreach program is well within the framework of the law," said Terry Holt, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign.
But tax experts said the campaign is walking a fine line between permissible activity by individual congregants and impermissible activity by congregations. Supporters of Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, charged that the Bush-Cheney campaign is luring churches into risking their tax status.

"I think it is sinful of them to encourage pastors and churches to engage in partisan political activity and run the risk of losing their tax-exempt status," said Steve Rosenthal, chief executive officer of America Coming Together, a group working to defeat Bush.
[...]
A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service, Frank Keith, [...] pointed out, however, that the IRS on June 10 sent a strongly worded letter to both the Republican and Democratic national committees, reminding them that tax-exempt charitable groups "are prohibited from directly or indirectly participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office."

That warning came one week after The Post and other news media reported on a Bush-Cheney campaign e-mail that sought to identify 1,600 "friendly congregations" in Pennsylvania where Bush supporters "might gather on a regular basis."
The IRS letter noted that religious organizations are allowed to sponsor debates, distribute voter guides and conduct voter registration drives. But if those efforts show "a preference for or against a certain candidate or party . . . it becomes a prohibited activity," the letter said.

Milton Cerny, a tax specialist in the Washington office of the law firm Caplin & Drysdale who formerly administered tax-exempt groups for the IRS, said there is nothing in the campaign instructions "that on its face clearly would violate" the law.
"But these activities, if conducted in concert with the church or church leadership, certainly could be construed by the IRS as the church engaging in partisan electioneering," he said. "The devil is in the details."

Rosemary E. Fei, a tax specialist at the San Francisco law firm of Silk, Adler & Colvin, said the campaign checklist "feels dangerous to me" not just because of what is in it, but because of what is not. "There's no mention whatsoever that churches should be careful to remain nonpartisan," she said.

The gall of the Republican party goes beyond anything I have ever seen. Firstly, it is illegal for a church entity (any tax-exempt charitable organization) to promote one candidate or one political party over another. Secondly, if a Dem candidate tried to do this in a church or diocese, the GOPers would be up in arms crying foul, foul! (I remember a Presidential race not that long ago when certain African-American church leaders were promoting one candidate (Clinton) to their congregations and the GOPers did just that.)

Is this a case of good for the goose? I don't know, but I believe it is wrong for a pastor to speak for or against a particular political candidate (of either party). I believe it is wrong for a church to hand out "position papers" or "issue guides" to the congregation because more often than not there is a bias toward one position. It is up to each individual to unite his/her faith with his/her political beliefs. It should not be a coercive activity.