The national office of Americans United for Separation of Church and State has written a letter to the Internal Revenue Service asking the agency to investigate Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, OK for violations of the tax code.
In violation of U.S. law, AU contends that Fairview Baptist Church, through its pastor Paul Blair, officially endorsed Oklahoma gubernatorial candidate Mary Fallin when the congregation permitted and applauded his endorsement of the candidate from the pulpit last Sunday.
All tax-exempt 501(c)3 non-profit organizations are prohibited by law from endorsing political candidates.
5 comments:
Its kind of frustrating but the affected churches act like its a freedom of speech issue when it is really a tax and money issue. They could always renounce their tax free status and then their preachers could politic away from the pulpit.
Were these allegations true?
It does not say whether they were found true or not - what was the results?
The wheels of justice grind very slowly at the IRS and the IRS does not make public announcements about the results of their investigations.
We will know what happened when Fairview Baptist announces it.
http://www.alliancealert.org/2010/10/01/pastor-paul-blair-featured-in-news-9-video-politics-in-the-pulpit/
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