Thousands of Pastors across the nation took part in a challenge against the un-Constitutional Johnson amendment, (named for President Johnson who put forth the un-Constitutional amendment in 1954 while a Senator), today by publically endorsing specific candidates from the pulpits of their churchs. I am happy to say we participated in this and I preached the 8:15 service and my Pastor the 11:15 service and both of us preached against obama, the democratic party in general and various local democrats here in Md. Personally even though I could not bring myself to endorse a mormon from the pulpit, even though to defeat obama I will be voting for him and said so, I made it perfectly clear that a vote for obama was vote against America and that voting to support the liberal democrat party in this nation was a vote against the values of the Lord we serve. The sermon my Pastor led, along with thousands of others from around the nation, will be sent to the IRS this week to dare them to take legal action. The Constitution gives the Church not only tax exemption, but the right to freedom of speech and freedom from the govt dictating the content of what is said by the Pastor/Priest/Rabbi in performance of the duties his faith dictates. We'll now wait and see what the IRS wishes to do as our hope is to take these cases to the courts to clear up the fact that the govt cannot dictate content and cannot stifle the voice of the church in this nation's political process. The Constitution guarantees our church's freedoms, not some bureacrat in the IRS or some liberal facist democratic Senator.
This ignorant idiocy was already refuted in this failed thread:
http://www.usmessageboard.com/law-and-justice-system/251048-fight-restrictions-on-free-speech.html
As noted in that thread, there is no First Amendment issue in play, neither with regard to freedom of speech nor freedom concerning religion.
In Regan v. Taxation With Representation (1983), the Supreme Court upheld Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code, reasoning that the requirement to form two separate organizations one charitable and tax exempt, the other engaged in political advocacy does not violate the First Amendment.
Religious organization are therefore free to engage in political speech provided the separate political entity is established per Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. Regan v. TWR has been upheld by subsequent Court rulings it is considered settled law, and claims of government violation of Free Speech baseless.