United Church of Christ under IRS investigation - rightwing/Republican churches left alone

Last summer, Obama spoke to the national gathering (General Synod) of the UCC, because he's a UCC member and not because he was a presidential contender. Now, the IRS is "investigating".

Funny how the liberal churches get investigated for this something that is clearly not a campaigning issue, and the rightwing/Republican churches are left alone when their people come to churches purely to stump.

I'm curious how many churches McCain, Huckabee, and others have been to this campaign. How many churches did Shrubbie stump at in his campaign?

Fucking nonsense.

http://www.ucc.org/news/obama-speech-in-2007-prompts-1.html




Copy of the IRS letter here:

http://www.ucc.org/news/pdf/lettrirs.pdf

The UCC is just the latest victim. We had an Obama representative at our post-mass coffee social last Sunday and Father Stephen was very careful not to use the candidate's name in the service itself. (I was disappointed, because the guy was from Obama's GLBT outreach team and didn't really want to discuss Obama's stumbles on GLBT issues — I guess I shouldn't have told him I'd already voted for Obama.)

Every time religion comes up in a general forum here, particularly when its a right-wing church, there are calls for increased stringency on church/state separation. I'm all for that in principle, but the reality is that this noose has tightened only around the necks of progressive churches. It's all part of Bush turning the federal government into Karl Rove's personal plaything. :grr:

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-me-drake14feb14,1,1061290.story

And using church resources also is NOT a personal message.
This guy directly violated the tax-exempt code.

He is using his church to promote Huckabee.

I can't put a campaign sign in my yard, because I live in a church-owned parsonage. But I can put a bumpersticker on my car. And I worry when I park in the spot that says "Pastor" because some a-hole could make an issue of it. Fortunately, most people in my church are liberal dems (!), and this has not been a problem.

Yet it seems that the big cases we hear about are mostly about those who support liberal candidates. While I'm glad to hear they're looking into the Huckabee situation, I'm willing to bet we'll never hear about any cases involving McCain.

we had a Hillary sign, and now it is gone.

This is an odd election though, because there are usually many candidate signs up, and we were the only ones in the entire neighborhood with any sign up at all. This is also a liberal Democratic area.

Of course, we're also covered in snow which could be why - but I'm not even seeing bumper stickers or anything. And in past years, even with snow, I'm pretty sure people still got signs and other stuff up.

Interesting.

and thought so at the time. It's not Obama speaking to GS that was the problem, though I think uninviting him once he announced would have been the prudent thing. The problem was the campaign workers outside the convention center taking donations and contact info. At best, this was a bad idea. At worst, it was a violation of 501(C)(3). They simply shouldn't have been there.

And we can bitch and moan about what the fundies do, but we need to stay above reproach ourselves. This is more than theoretical for some of us. Most, maybe all, local churches have their federal status through the National Church. If Cleveland loses its status for this little stunt, so will my church. So, I suspect, will yours. That is trouble I don't even want to think about!

And then there's the fact that my biggest anti-National church asshole is just loving this, and making noise about leaving the denomination again. Thank you, Cleveland, for giving him this ammo.

I'm kind of hoping the Collegium will admit they shouldn't have done this, and just pay a fine.

Yes, fundies should be held accountable, but we need to behave appropriately as well.

and interviewed a guy from UCC who is also head (?) of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and he said that the campaign workers were on city property, and not in any way under the control of the UCC convention, so they are not on the hook for that.

here is the NPR story

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=75035288

here is the guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_W._Lynn

Reverend Barry W. Lynn (born 1948 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) has been the Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State since 1992.<1> He is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, and a prominent leader of the American religious left.

He is a strong advocate of separation of church and state and is considered a liberal Christian, both politically and theologically.

Don't the fundie preachers even hand out fliers telling their flock who to vote for? I'm so sick of this administration using the government to go after all the good folks while declaring that no law applies to them.

A large conservative church in my area is infamous
for directly involving politics both with political
endorsements and fundraisers for local city gov.
candidates.

No problem there with the IRS.

But this garners instant attention and action?

Somethings not right here.

But Critters is right, we need to be mindful
of keeping the separation of church/state
very visible.

Funny, I was just telling someone about this the other day. I hadn't known it was dropped.

They're still investigating Trinity, and I fear there's a greater chance of them being penalized...thanks to Michael Pfleger. I don't think any of Jeremiah Wright's sermons--when you hear the full sermons--violated the regs. But Pfleger, well, that could be a problem.