In my view, this 'endorsement' game has been going on for a long time, except that most pastors are not so explicit. I have been in churches where one did not have to do much (if any) reading between the lines to know where he or she stood and that not voting the same way meant you were going against God. Although I have had more experience with this in conservative churches, I have also seen it happen in churches that supported liberals or democrats (they are not the same in my mind
).
I am not one to say that people of faith should not be involved or speak their mind with regards to the political process. I do find it very disappointing when religious leaders and others are so unable to disassociate their own opinions and views from whatever God might believe that they feel their opinions have the force of the Word of God.
With regards to the law, I found the following discussion from
The Baptist Press.
The full IRS document regarding tax-exempt status is
here. (can get in PDF or HTML format)
I did find it interesting that (according the the BP), the law regarding political endorsements was the result of a domineering Texas politician (LBJ). Evidently, Tom Delay is part of a long history
).
Should we have such a law? On the one hand, such a law is a selective restriction of free speech, which I find distasteful. On the other hand, I have seen enough what I would consider abuses by religious leaders to have some trepidation about not having any restrictions. It is also probably fair to say that some religious leaders will push the envelope on any restrictions that exist to the greatest extent they can (I think this is already happening with regards to the current law).
