NEWS STORY: Church-State Group Fights Robertson on Voter Guides

c. 2000 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ Americans United for the Separation of Church and State said Thursday (Sept. 28) it will throw “a monkey wrench into Pat Robertson’s political machine” by advising a quarter of a million churches that the IRS could revoke their tax-exempt status if they distribute the Christian Coalition’s controversial voter […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Americans United for the Separation of Church and State said Thursday (Sept. 28) it will throw “a monkey wrench into Pat Robertson’s political machine” by advising a quarter of a million churches that the IRS could revoke their tax-exempt status if they distribute the Christian Coalition’s controversial voter guides.

One day before the Coalition was scheduled to host its annual Washington powwow, the Rev. Barry Lynn, Americans United’s executive director, said the guides “reek of dishonest and, frankly, biased politics” and do not belong in U.S. churches.


“These documents are not voter guides at all,” Lynn said at a news conference. “Instead, they are partisan campaign fliers that advocate the election of certain candidates and the defeat of others.”

Lynn announced a massive mailing to nearly 250,000 churches reminding pastors that IRS rules prohibit churches from actively campaigning for or against a candidate. Lynn said Coalition officials have not been honest with churches about the 75 million voter guides.

“America’s churches are intentionally being led down a road of misrepresentation,” Lynn said.

Last year a federal judge threw out most of a lawsuit brought against the Coalition by the Federal Election Commission, which said the voter guides were too partisan for the nonprofit organization.

And earlier this year, the IRS was ordered to refund the Coalition part of its 1990 tax bill after the IRS lost a court battle that challenged the group’s tax-exempt status.

Under IRS rules as a 501(c)4 organization, the Coalition is allowed to engage in some political activities as long as it is not the group’s central focus. But churches, as tax-exempt 501(c)3 bodies, cannot engage in partisan politics.

That is why distributing the voter guides can be dangerous for churches, Lynn said. The IRS earlier this year revoked the tax-exempt status of a New York church that was actively campaigning against President Clinton.

“The prohibition is absolute,” said Milton Cherny, a Washington lawyer who formerly oversaw tax-exempt organizations for the IRS. “There is a zero-tolerance policy in the IRS on these issues.”


Christian Coalition officials, however, dismissed Lynn’s latest effort. Bob Dutko, a Coalition spokesman, said the letter campaign is part of an ongoing attempt to “strip people of faith from the political debate” and that “it’s not going to work.”

“These voter guides are completely non-partisan, completely legal,” Dutko said. “That’s already been established in the federal courts, and this is nothing more than the same scare tactics that (Lynn) has tried to use for years.”

DEA END ECKSTROM

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