Michael C. Dorf: “Why the Constitution Neither Protects Nor Forbids Tax Subsidies for Politicking from the Pulpit, And Why Both Liberals and Conservatives May be on the Wrong Side of this Issue”

Cornell Law Professor Michael C. Dorf, a self described “liberal”,  has this commentary on Findlaw discussing ADF’s Pulpit Initiative.  He writes: 

In this column, I will argue that neither side in this debate is right. The Constitution neither protects nor forbids politicking from the pulpit. Rather, the matter is a policy judgment for elected officials.

Oddly, however, liberals and conservatives each appear to be on the wrong side of the issue. In other contexts, liberals often fret about government using the power of the purse to constrain speech, while conservatives oppose the expenditure of general funds for sectarian purposes. Here the roles are reversed. Politics, it seems, not only makes strange bedfellows, but sometimes puts them on the wrong side of the bed.

Dorf does not distinguish between churches and other types of 501(c)(3)s.  Nor does he address the history of tax exemption for churches in the United States.  He assumes tax exemption for churches is a government gift granted through the Internal Revenue Code.