The Conscience of Abe’s Turn freedom of speech, defense, and life

Everything becomes terribly muddled, such that you can’t tell where one issue ends and the other begins. Because as soon as you think you have right and wrong figured out, you turn around to discover you’ve backed yourself into another unjust, overreaching law written by power-drunk congressmen and supported by meddling constituent factions.

Here comes a post from KipEsquire, of the libertarian blog A Stitch in Haste, about what he calls “an illegal and un-Christian stunt being planned by the theocrats at the Alliance Defense Fund.” Quoting the Washington Post:

Declaring that clergy have a constitutional right to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting several dozen pastors to do just that on Sept. 28, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules… designed to trigger an IRS investigation that ADF lawyers would then challenge in federal court. The ultimate goal is to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.

… to which Kip retorts:

I noted previously, there is of course no “ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.” There is a condition on all tax-exempt institutions that they refrain form endorsing candidates (not issues) if they wish to continue to enjoy tax-exempt status.

Contrary to the lies of the ADF, this is in no way a “church and state issue.” There is no such thing as a First Amendment “right to a tax break.”

Granted, none of us has a Constitutional right to a tax break. But taxes are so laborious, even we libertarians take tax breaks wherever we can find them. It extremely difficult for a non-profit religious organization to make it, being a non-profit-seeking organization, without tax-exempt status. And who can fault them for doing everything they can to seek a respite from such a regime? No, we have no right to tax break. Truthfully, however, every American ought to have a right to a tax break, and we can hardly fault some of us for pursuing that which we all should have. (Or are we of that breed of politicos who depend on big-government, envy politics?)

Furthermore, incorporating as a for-profit house of worship… That’s treading on untrodden ground. There is very little precedent for a for-profit house of worship, because such a thing doesn’t even make sense. As a result, operating one runs a whole host of other legal risks. What if someone misunderstands that you’re not a 501(c)(3)? What if that someone happens to be an IRS examiner? How do you justify “business expenses” to the IRS, when you have no profit-seeking bottom line? (Answer: You can’t. So you can’t incorporate.) Of course, you can always operate as an unincorporated collective… but, well, that has its own set of problems.

Now, I know that Kip, being an atheist, probably has no love of houses of worship. But I would hope he would not allow his personal views to prejudice his compassion towards other human beings who are being forced into an unfair and untenable government system, because that would not be very libertarian of him. (Hey, if he gets to call the civil disobedience of the ADF “un-Christian,” then I at minimum get to call his backlash “not very libertarian.”)

It’s just like the government schools

I can’t resist throwing Kip’s own words back in his face, in order to make the point. Just the previous day, Kip had written that an eighth-circuit appellate court has upheld free speech in schools. Long story short: The school demanded that the students wear uniforms. Some students and parents didn’t like that, so to protest the policy, the students wore black armbands. The students were suspended. Lawsuits ensued. The courts confirmed that students do indeed have a First-Amendment right to protest the school’s uniform policy.

But let’s be clear about this. (Let me play devil’s advocate for a moment and throw Kip’s words back in his face, in order to make a point.) This is nothing new. There is of course no violation of the First Amendment here. The school imposed a condition on all students both to wear the specified clothing and to obtain approval before distributing protest literature, if they wish to continue attending the school. Contrary to the lies of the ACLU, this is no way a “free speech issue.” There is no such thing as a First-Amendment “right to a free schooling.”

If those students don’t want to wear the school uniform, let them attend a school that has a more lenient dress code! Or let them be home-schooled. Can’t afford it? That’s not our problem. Because there is no such thing as a First-Amendment right to free schooling. If you accept the government’s largess, you have to agree to the government’s rules. But no one’s forcing you to accept the government’s largess. That’s why the courts have essentially ruled that government-school students can be asked to waive their First-Amendment rights. (“The constitutional rights of students in public school are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings.”)

And all libertarians say, “Yeah… right.” (Be sure to say that with sarcasm, and maybe even a little sardonicism.)

And as intelligent libertarians, we know that tax cuts are just government subsidies by another name. A tax break for houses of worship is like government-subsidized schooling for parents.

Everything becomes so muddled

If students and parents have First-Amendment rights in government schools, then pastors have First-Amendment rights in government churches… And let’s be honest about that last part. 501(c)(3) organizations are, at least in part, government churches. Maybe the government doesn’t specify the theology (yet), but it does set the rules. Once you accept the government’s largess, then yeah, maybe you can still retain your independence. But (to paraphrase a line from Yes, Prime Minister) trains are independent, too, but if you lay down the lines, that’s the way they’ll go.

In truth, our government is so big, so intrusive, we can hardly fault anyone for making the very difficult tradeoffs government imposes. Whether they decide to send their kids to an inefficient, socialist, government indoctrination center, or whether they scrimp and save to send their kids to a free-market school (on top of the taxes they already pay), or whether they sacrifice in order to home-school (and possibly incur the wrath of the local government-school superintendent)… Whatever course they choose, as long as they stand up for their rights doing it, we have to applaud them. And we can’t really begrudge them whatever pittance of rebate or respite they can wrest from the control of our overlords.

But I’m actually referring to tax-exempt churches.

I personally admire and revere the pastors who dare to challenge the government rules limiting what they can say in the pulpit, because it’s a stand that needs to be made, and I would not have the courage to do it myself.

Sure, there are other courses these pastors could pursue, the easiest one being just to follow the IRS rules. But if they see those rules as unacceptable—especially if they see them as theologically unacceptable—they can either bow to the government’s dictate (not a scriptural approach), or they can suffer. The government then gives them several different options for how they suffer: slowly through taxation, or quickly through an IRS audit.

Meanwhile, you should know, most churches avoid all politics in the pulpit—not just endorsing candidates, but any political positioning, even if it is legal—because it’s usually bad for business. And that’s something I know from personal experience. (But that’s a different story.) There are almost always multiple political viewpoints for any given theology or scripture, even politically charged passages like Romans 13. It’s hard enough to debate religion in church, without it turning into a fight; never mind bringing politics into the mix. As a result, I personally disapprove of politics in the pulpit, and I tend to avoid political churches.

So the ADF is defending the minority’s right to speak on topics the majority sees as inappropriate.

-TimK

P.S. On a side note, Marcus S. Owens, a lawyer working against the ADF, criticized the ADF’s lawyers for advising pastors how to violate the IRS rules. The Washington Post article quotes him as saying, “The tax system would be shut down if you allowed attorneys to counsel people on how to violate the tax law.” Really? It’s that simple to shut down the tax system? Well then, the ADF must be on the right track!

P.P.S. I should also add that as a libertarian, I generally abhor what the ADF does, such as fighting for laws to disadvantage same-sex partners, or to help the Boy Scouts ban gay Scout leaders. (What a crock of shit.) And to think that I used to be a fan of James Dobson… but that was before he started talking about politics. (Believe it or not, he actually used to say some pretty valuable things. Probably still does. But I haven’t been able to hear them, because they’ve been drowned out by all the shit he throws up.) As a libertarian, I abhor his politics. And as a Christian, I am incensed, and ashamed that he’s associated himself with me.