"Free Expression of Religion and Freedom of Speech or Not, That is the Question. There is considerable confusion today on what pastors can and cannot say from the pulpit. 1 Most of this confusion rests squarely on the structural foundation of the church. If the church is founded as a 501 (c)(3), the church has free speech restrictions. 2 All 501 (c)(3) organizations are prohibited from influencing legislation and political campaigns. 3 As social issues have become political issues, churches and church leaders are increasingly avoiding issues, avoiding taking positions, and selectively addressing Biblical principles and training Godly leaders out of fear of what might happen if they do...."
Other reports are that of the many new IRS agents being hired, 20,000 will be used to target churches.
I can personally testify that churches are afraid to host (or even discuss) book conferences or book signings regardless of the specific contents of the books. This applies to both fiction and non-fiction.
ACTION IN CONGRESS TO RESTORE 1st Amendment rights for religious organizations is badly needed.
Churches fear the IRS. They are afraid to speak out about censorship, as per the topic of this post. It might be useful to also contact NRB (National Religious Broadcasters), the world's largest association of Christian Communicators and get them copies of this post.
no one is stopping churches from engaging in any kind of political speech. if a church wants to talk politics, all it has to do is pay taxes like any other enterprise and no one will question it. IRS didnt write these laws, congress did. if you dont like that law let's hear exactly how you think it ought to work. if your point is that IRS targets certain political points of view and not others, and this is part of a general weaponization of federal agencies against certain viewpoints, i would partly agree. while i'm not sure IRS is targeting viewpoints in any significant, systematic way, the FBI and other agencies have become snakepits of apparatchiks pushing all kinds of truth-hating agendas
lois lerner was fired and her limited activities dont qualify as IRS generally targeting viewpoints in the enforcement of tax-exempt status. so no, i cant say lois lerner wasnt an anomaly at IRS
do you disagree with the way congress said tax-exempt status should work? or do you agree with the law(s) and just think federal agencies are biased in enforcing them?
here's what 501(c)(3) says. please tell us if you'd change anything about it or any other law
(3)Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and which does 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.
Google Doesn't Want You to See This Letter From a Christian Pastor About Pride Month
"Google and the other Big Tech giants are happy to promote content with a scrubbed-down version of Jesus — a hippie-dippie who only cares about love and winks at sin. But the real Jesus of the Bible? The one who condemns sin and talks about hell? He has increasingly become verboten."
Lois Lerner was allowed to retire. Her "limited" activities were to target groups whose views and activities (issues like election integrity, and books opposing government policy) were opposed by those in power.
Reporting truth is not propaganda. The First Amendment is about Free Speech, and the current law you cite does indeed allow targeting churches for following their beliefs or even hosting writers and speakers critical of the government.
Yes, the current law is flawed. It should be changed as being unconstitutional, in my opinion. . Free speech to influence legislation is a core critical part of free speech -- perhaps the most critical part.
And it seems that all the current bureaucracies have now been weaponized against political opponents.
you're saying the law should not make restrictions on speech a condition of tax-exempt status
if other corporations pay taxes, then being tax-exempt is a form of subsidy where for-profit businesses, in effect, provide exempt, charitable businesses with economic support through the tax system. that's aside from the voluntary contributions that for-profit businesses make to charity
the justification for subsidizing charities this way is that most people would be willing to contribute to charities anyway so it's not a big deal. that justification falls away when charitable organizations engage in partisan political activity. because when that happens, maybe a for-profit business would have strong objections to supporting that charity, which it is doing, economically, by paying taxes that the charity isnt paying
so that would be the rationale for making self-restraint on political speech a condition of tax-exempt status. like i said earlier, any charitable organization can say anything it wants, but if it wants to fall within 501(c)(3) and keep its exempt status, it cant get heavily into political speech
i see plenty of problems with this, but none having to do with the first amendment, because agreeing to keep your mouth shut because you're offered money to keep your mouth shut is not a deprivation of free speech
Shakespeare was right: "First we kill all the lawyers....."
The issue here is simply about allowing churches to promote the messages of the faith they profess. Which is the core reason they even exist.
It is not about allowing for some pigs (or companies, or charities) to be more equal than others.
America has run off the rails. It's fine for foreign governments, even enemy states and crime cartels, to influence our elected leaders by funneling money through their families to purchase lies and silence. But not for a church to promote its core beliefs, or to oppose what it deems to be evil.
Had that twisted notion prevailed in 1776, there would likely not even be an America.
Agreeing to keep your month shut, because you are offered money to keep your mouth shut, violates religious beliefs. "Thou shalt not lie...." It also corrupts governments. Orwell was right. So was Jesus.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." -- Leonardo da Vinci
Ecclesiastes 3:7-8: "A time to tear and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace."
This is a time to speak while we still can. In today's world, we suffer Mind War, Censorship, and Fake News. The evil is almost Biblical.
“Election denier!” “Science denier!” “Climate-change denier!” “Conspiracy theorist!” And then there’s “hate speech,” “fake news,” “disinformation,” “misinformation,” even something called “MALinformation.” A bizarre new lexicon has been conjured up by America’s elites, the SOLE PURPOSE of which is to discredit and ridicule – and if at all possible, CENSOR ENTIRELY – speech that doesn’t support their increasingly dark and deranged agenda.
Tucker Carlson is just the latest. Along with Whites and Christians.
you said: 'Agreeing to keep your month shut, because you are offered money to keep your mouth shut, violates religious beliefs. "Thou shalt not lie...."'
that would mean churches who seek tax-exempt status are corrupt liars because they agreed to keep their mouths shut when they applied for tax-exemption
i dont agree the issue is allowing churches to get their messages out, even if that message is about politics and who you should and shouldnt vote for
churches can already do that and IRS isnt stopping any church from getting involved in elections and political campaigning and making that a substantial part of their religious activity
the issue here is using the tax code to promote charity. the whole point of charity is that it's voluntary. using the tax code, in effect, makes every taxpayer an involuntary contributor to someone else's church and someone else's charity. that isnt charity. and once you do that someone has to define what a charity is and then government has to police the supposed boundaries between charitable and non-charitable work-- all of which is a fool's errand and invites government in
in every moment of your life, you are either doing god's work or you're not. there is no legal test for that
the reason for tax exempting churches is not because legislators wanted to promote god's work. exemptions for charities and churches are exceptions to the taxation of corporations
all of the supposed beneficiaries of government are individuals, which is why individuals in a republic are taxed. you can agree with taxing individuals or not, but that is the justification
corporations are fictitious persons with no economic reality. they are just investment vehicles for individuals, and only individuals enjoy profits or suffer losses. and those individuals are already taxed on their returns on investment, whether in corporate form or otherwise. so what is the justification for a tax on corporations?
there isnt any. corporate taxation is just a welfare-reducing, double tax on investment in business. it requires business owners to pay a personal income tax on any profits they receive from their business, and then it taxes that profit again as a 'corporate' tax, because we are pretending the corporation is a person
so how do you sell this welfare-reducing nonsense to a sleepy electorate? you tell them, dont worry, your churches wont be taxed, your charitable organization wont be taxed. that work is god's work and running a business is not god's work. giving money away is god's work but making the money that is given away is not god's work. we don't tax god's work. we just tax business, which is all about making money, which is not the same as being all about doing good
it's all based on the lie that when you are doing good you are not doing it for your own profit and your own good, and that somehow businessmen who try to maximize financial returns on investment are doing something morally different than what churches do and deserve to be taxed abnormally
you can dress it up however you want, but it's rooted in a hatred of capitalism. and that is the larger issue here. not, churches getting their messages out, but capitalism versus communism, the individual vs the social, reality vs imagination
you believe the lie that you can do things for the good of others and insist your church-work is just for god, that it's not like what those businessmen are doing, and you agree to taxing businessmen abnormally and forcing them to subsidize your church-work, which you believe is better than their work, through the tax code. you thereby invite government right into your church and then complain when they show up and do what they said they'd do when this whole thing was set up
you can blame lawyers, blame politicians, blame government, blame everyone except yourself. but it's people who believe in these anti-capitalist lies who are responsible, not so much the politicians they paid to get it done, and certainly not the 'government' they imagine is doing all this nonsense, because the government is you
Team Biden and the IRS is also after the donations made to support the J6 Patriots who are still trapped in the DC Gulags.
https://www.wnd.com/2023/05/biden-justice-dept-targets-cash-raised-jan-6ers-donations-mount/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=wnd-brief&utm_campaign=dailypm&utm_content=brief&ats_es=de72afa6a6e540aca22fd5990e511851
More evidence -- under oath -- that the Biden FBI has been weaponized to target innocent Americans.
https://dailytorch.com/2023/05/house-select-committee-on-weaponization-whistleblower-report-reveals-fbi-rotted-at-its-core/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=92c886de-bd2f-4488-81f7-9d68402c2f28
A $4 TRILLION debt ceiling increase?!
That's what the Speaker's negotiators are going to bring back to us?
Moving the issue of unsustainable debt beyond the presidential election, even though 60% of Americans are with the GOP on it?
No meaningful limits on the IRS.
No release of the Jan 6 tapes.
https://www.westernjournal.com/conservative-house-republicans-threaten-sink-biden-mccarthy-deal-going-try/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=usjfbreaking&utm_campaign=can&utm_content=firefly
IRS denies tax-exempt status to Christian nonprofit group because "Bible teachings are typically affiliated with the Republican Party."
https://news.yahoo.com/irs-denies-tax-exempt-status-160500810.html
Churches Furious That IRS Agents Can Pose as Clergymen
https://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Churches-clergy-IRS-agents/2014/11/19/id/608447/
"Free Expression of Religion and Freedom of Speech or Not, That is the Question. There is considerable confusion today on what pastors can and cannot say from the pulpit. 1 Most of this confusion rests squarely on the structural foundation of the church. If the church is founded as a 501 (c)(3), the church has free speech restrictions. 2 All 501 (c)(3) organizations are prohibited from influencing legislation and political campaigns. 3 As social issues have become political issues, churches and church leaders are increasingly avoiding issues, avoiding taking positions, and selectively addressing Biblical principles and training Godly leaders out of fear of what might happen if they do...."
Other reports are that of the many new IRS agents being hired, 20,000 will be used to target churches.
I can personally testify that churches are afraid to host (or even discuss) book conferences or book signings regardless of the specific contents of the books. This applies to both fiction and non-fiction.
ACTION IN CONGRESS TO RESTORE 1st Amendment rights for religious organizations is badly needed.
Churches fear the IRS. They are afraid to speak out about censorship, as per the topic of this post. It might be useful to also contact NRB (National Religious Broadcasters), the world's largest association of Christian Communicators and get them copies of this post.
NRB --Washington DC Office (202) 543-0073 https://www.nrb.org
https://open.substack.com/pub/jtrudel/p/onward-christian-soldiers-but-without?r=6r9ya&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
no one is stopping churches from engaging in any kind of political speech. if a church wants to talk politics, all it has to do is pay taxes like any other enterprise and no one will question it. IRS didnt write these laws, congress did. if you dont like that law let's hear exactly how you think it ought to work. if your point is that IRS targets certain political points of view and not others, and this is part of a general weaponization of federal agencies against certain viewpoints, i would partly agree. while i'm not sure IRS is targeting viewpoints in any significant, systematic way, the FBI and other agencies have become snakepits of apparatchiks pushing all kinds of truth-hating agendas
Can you say "Lois Lerner"?
"The power to tax is the power to destroy."
https://blog.johntrudel.com/the-most-hated-and-feared-federal-agency-is-the-irs-here-is-what-you-can-do-now-to-help-fix-it/
lois lerner was fired and her limited activities dont qualify as IRS generally targeting viewpoints in the enforcement of tax-exempt status. so no, i cant say lois lerner wasnt an anomaly at IRS
do you disagree with the way congress said tax-exempt status should work? or do you agree with the law(s) and just think federal agencies are biased in enforcing them?
here's what 501(c)(3) says. please tell us if you'd change anything about it or any other law
(3)Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and which does 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.
https://pjmedia.com/culture/paula-bolyard/2023/06/08/hate-speech-google-owned-blogger-censors-pastors-letter-to-parents-on-how-to-explain-pride-month-n1701614
Google Doesn't Want You to See This Letter From a Christian Pastor About Pride Month
"Google and the other Big Tech giants are happy to promote content with a scrubbed-down version of Jesus — a hippie-dippie who only cares about love and winks at sin. But the real Jesus of the Bible? The one who condemns sin and talks about hell? He has increasingly become verboten."
Lois Lerner was allowed to retire. Her "limited" activities were to target groups whose views and activities (issues like election integrity, and books opposing government policy) were opposed by those in power.
Reporting truth is not propaganda. The First Amendment is about Free Speech, and the current law you cite does indeed allow targeting churches for following their beliefs or even hosting writers and speakers critical of the government.
Yes, the current law is flawed. It should be changed as being unconstitutional, in my opinion. . Free speech to influence legislation is a core critical part of free speech -- perhaps the most critical part.
And it seems that all the current bureaucracies have now been weaponized against political opponents.
you're saying the law should not make restrictions on speech a condition of tax-exempt status
if other corporations pay taxes, then being tax-exempt is a form of subsidy where for-profit businesses, in effect, provide exempt, charitable businesses with economic support through the tax system. that's aside from the voluntary contributions that for-profit businesses make to charity
the justification for subsidizing charities this way is that most people would be willing to contribute to charities anyway so it's not a big deal. that justification falls away when charitable organizations engage in partisan political activity. because when that happens, maybe a for-profit business would have strong objections to supporting that charity, which it is doing, economically, by paying taxes that the charity isnt paying
so that would be the rationale for making self-restraint on political speech a condition of tax-exempt status. like i said earlier, any charitable organization can say anything it wants, but if it wants to fall within 501(c)(3) and keep its exempt status, it cant get heavily into political speech
i see plenty of problems with this, but none having to do with the first amendment, because agreeing to keep your mouth shut because you're offered money to keep your mouth shut is not a deprivation of free speech
Shakespeare was right: "First we kill all the lawyers....."
The issue here is simply about allowing churches to promote the messages of the faith they profess. Which is the core reason they even exist.
It is not about allowing for some pigs (or companies, or charities) to be more equal than others.
America has run off the rails. It's fine for foreign governments, even enemy states and crime cartels, to influence our elected leaders by funneling money through their families to purchase lies and silence. But not for a church to promote its core beliefs, or to oppose what it deems to be evil.
Had that twisted notion prevailed in 1776, there would likely not even be an America.
Agreeing to keep your month shut, because you are offered money to keep your mouth shut, violates religious beliefs. "Thou shalt not lie...." It also corrupts governments. Orwell was right. So was Jesus.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." -- Leonardo da Vinci
Ecclesiastes 3:7-8: "A time to tear and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace."
This is a time to speak while we still can. In today's world, we suffer Mind War, Censorship, and Fake News. The evil is almost Biblical.
“Election denier!” “Science denier!” “Climate-change denier!” “Conspiracy theorist!” And then there’s “hate speech,” “fake news,” “disinformation,” “misinformation,” even something called “MALinformation.” A bizarre new lexicon has been conjured up by America’s elites, the SOLE PURPOSE of which is to discredit and ridicule – and if at all possible, CENSOR ENTIRELY – speech that doesn’t support their increasingly dark and deranged agenda.
Tucker Carlson is just the latest. Along with Whites and Christians.
you said: 'Agreeing to keep your month shut, because you are offered money to keep your mouth shut, violates religious beliefs. "Thou shalt not lie...."'
that would mean churches who seek tax-exempt status are corrupt liars because they agreed to keep their mouths shut when they applied for tax-exemption
i dont agree the issue is allowing churches to get their messages out, even if that message is about politics and who you should and shouldnt vote for
churches can already do that and IRS isnt stopping any church from getting involved in elections and political campaigning and making that a substantial part of their religious activity
the issue here is using the tax code to promote charity. the whole point of charity is that it's voluntary. using the tax code, in effect, makes every taxpayer an involuntary contributor to someone else's church and someone else's charity. that isnt charity. and once you do that someone has to define what a charity is and then government has to police the supposed boundaries between charitable and non-charitable work-- all of which is a fool's errand and invites government in
in every moment of your life, you are either doing god's work or you're not. there is no legal test for that
the reason for tax exempting churches is not because legislators wanted to promote god's work. exemptions for charities and churches are exceptions to the taxation of corporations
all of the supposed beneficiaries of government are individuals, which is why individuals in a republic are taxed. you can agree with taxing individuals or not, but that is the justification
corporations are fictitious persons with no economic reality. they are just investment vehicles for individuals, and only individuals enjoy profits or suffer losses. and those individuals are already taxed on their returns on investment, whether in corporate form or otherwise. so what is the justification for a tax on corporations?
there isnt any. corporate taxation is just a welfare-reducing, double tax on investment in business. it requires business owners to pay a personal income tax on any profits they receive from their business, and then it taxes that profit again as a 'corporate' tax, because we are pretending the corporation is a person
so how do you sell this welfare-reducing nonsense to a sleepy electorate? you tell them, dont worry, your churches wont be taxed, your charitable organization wont be taxed. that work is god's work and running a business is not god's work. giving money away is god's work but making the money that is given away is not god's work. we don't tax god's work. we just tax business, which is all about making money, which is not the same as being all about doing good
it's all based on the lie that when you are doing good you are not doing it for your own profit and your own good, and that somehow businessmen who try to maximize financial returns on investment are doing something morally different than what churches do and deserve to be taxed abnormally
you can dress it up however you want, but it's rooted in a hatred of capitalism. and that is the larger issue here. not, churches getting their messages out, but capitalism versus communism, the individual vs the social, reality vs imagination
you believe the lie that you can do things for the good of others and insist your church-work is just for god, that it's not like what those businessmen are doing, and you agree to taxing businessmen abnormally and forcing them to subsidize your church-work, which you believe is better than their work, through the tax code. you thereby invite government right into your church and then complain when they show up and do what they said they'd do when this whole thing was set up
you can blame lawyers, blame politicians, blame government, blame everyone except yourself. but it's people who believe in these anti-capitalist lies who are responsible, not so much the politicians they paid to get it done, and certainly not the 'government' they imagine is doing all this nonsense, because the government is you