An Internal Revenue Service (IRS) restriction on free speech in faith communities has been labelled unconstitutional.
The United States District Court in Eastern Texas took on the case, which saw the IRS admit that the law was flawed.
Known as the Johnson Amendment, the gag order on tax-free 501c organisations goes back to before Lyndon B. Johnson was president.
When he was a senator, Johnson is said to have pushed the 1954 amendment because of direct political opposition from two tax-exempt organisations.
While the amendment may have shielded LBJ against political criticisms from pastors, the no-politics-from-the-pulpit legislation ended up being an arbitrary law subject to interpretation.
As such, National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) challenged the 71-year-old IRS amendment and won on settlement.
In a surprise agreement with NRB, the IRS stated, LBJ’s Amendment potentially violated rights such as freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion.
Other infringements included due process and equal protection under the law.
Based on current interpretations of the law, Churches would lose their tax exemption if they were believed to be “participating, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”
The IRS admitted that if directed to do so, Johnson’s tax-free terms and conditions could be weaponised against a pastor, pulpit, or tax-paying parishioner to ban any conversation about a political leader, policy, ideology, or party.
The amendment shouldn’t reach that far.
Churches communicating concerns about politics, “through their customary channels on matters of faith,” the IRS noted, are not to be regarded as ‘participating,’ or ‘intervening’ in a ‘political campaign,’ within the ordinary meaning of those words.”
Discussing politics from the pulpit or in the pews was equal to “a family discussing” the same subjects, both the NRB and IRS asserted.
A vanguard against the Johnson amendment since at least 2011, the American Centre for Law and Justice (ACLJ), roughly said, “it’s about time.”
“The state should allow the church to speak the truth,” said ACLJ Executive Director Jordan Sekulow in a piece outlining just how big this win is.
“Churches and pastors no longer have to choose between free speech and their church’s tax-exempt status.”
“Instead of silencing unpopular opinions, the state should let the free market of ideas decide who wins,” he remarked.
This decision now means that “pastors can now speak freely from the pulpit about political candidates without fear of IRS retaliation.”
While the consent decree is significant, the settlement is yet to be codified by a judge.
Lexology, a law review site, explained that before any formal changes to IRS policy can be made, the agreement needs to be formalised.
If not, the IRS might still be able to issue policy guidelines, which would declare that Churches are exempt from having their content scrutinised through the amendment.
This may not be a straightforward process.
Atheists, neo-pagans, and secular humanists are clamouring to nullify the agreement.
The pro-LGBTQ+, no-apparent-issues-with-Islam, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State have vowed to intervene.
“Since Trump’s IRS isn’t willing to defend the core values of the Johnson Amendment, Americans United is stepping up to the plate,” they squelched.
They’re now “asking a federal court to reject the IRS’s proposal,” reasoning that LBJ’s political gag order on pastors and the pulpit was good for churches.
Effectively telling pastors to keep to their cloisters, Americans United said, people “attend houses of worship for spiritual reasons, not to vote.”
In other words, “Christians: fall in, line up, goosestep in unison, and salute, or else!”
