By Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy and Julie Schonfeld
Originally posted in The Hill
Earlier this month, the Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations released a report recommending that the government lift the ban on candidate endorsements by tax-exempt religious organizations including houses of worship. Such a change would reverse a decades-old principle that tax-exempt institutions -- which enjoy freedom from numerous types of government regulation and whose donors enjoy a tax deduction -- ought not be engaging in electioneering at the taxpayers’ expense. Obviously, should a religious institution wish to forego that tax-exempt status, its First Amendment rights would guarantee that clergy could use the pulpit to make such endorsements... [read more]