Partisanship in the pulpit, then and now: Prohibition Johnson put through in 1954 could face court challenges

National Catholic Reporter (12/28): This quietude of the courts could well change. The conservative Alliance Defense Fund recruited a group of more than 30 pastors to preach explicitly on the moral qualities of the candidates on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2008, which they deemed “Pulpit Freedom Sunday.” As Mayer notes, the group “then made a list of the participating pastors and churches public, in effect daring the IRS to investigate them.” The Internal Revenue Service may be reluctant to get into a clash with a church, but at some point, the government must enforce its own laws, and a challenge to the constitutionality of the proscription on partisanship in the pulpits may come before the courts.