Tag Archives: ADF: Pulpit Initiative

Amy Ridenour’s National Center Blog: According to experts in tax law, Jarrett’s overt criticism of Republicans may have violated IRS rules that bar churches from engaging in partisan activism. Eric Stanley, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund (a critic of such laws), told the Daily Caller: “It is problematic under current regulations.”

Barry Lynn at Opposing Views: Nothing I heard in the news reports about this incident indicates that Jarrett told people how to vote. Yes, she praised Obama and criticized the GOP. But pastors laud or blast politicians all of the time. Unless they take the additional step of advising congregants how they ought to vote or engage in some other action (distributing candidate literature in church, endorsing a candidate on the church website, donating church funds to a candidate), they’re not likely to attract IRS scrutiny.

John Hayward Human Events: However, the IRS’ enforcement of its rules are skewed, said Stanley. ‘The IRS’ record of enforcement against churches has been atrocious, uneven, discriminatory and arbitrary,” he said. “Usually more liberal churches and more African-American churches have been [engaged in political activities] for years… whether it is legal or not,” said [Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defense Fund], who wants to persuade the Supreme Court to invalidate IRS curbs on clerics’ speech . . .

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley at Speak Up Movement Church Blog: Earlier, Kevin Theriot blogged about the Supreme Court’s decision in EEOC v. Hosanna-Tabor. The case was a phenomenal win for religious freedom and has far-reaching implications. In analyzing the opinion, one important implication is that the Supreme Court has announced heightened protection for the internal affairs of a church and for situations that affect the faith and mission of the church.

Baptist Press: “It is problematic under current regulations,” said Erik Stanley, a senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, which is campaigning to roll back IRS curbs on believers’ speech. But if the IRS concludes that the church violated the IRS code, the ADF “will represent the church, just as it would represent any church for what is said from the pulpit,” he said.

Weekly Standard (includes video):On the Sunday before the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett visited Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to give a political speech, in support of her boss (Barack Obama) and congressional Democrats . . .

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.

Christianity Today: Until the IRS sorts out who can authorize church audits, churches are left in limbo, said Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) senior legal counsel Erik Stanley. “It has become an intolerable system of self-censorship,” he said. “Society labels biblical issues as political, and pastors just back away.”

Our Sunday Visitor: What can clergy in the pulpit and Catholic nonprofits say about politics without fear of IRS retribution? The answer should be anything, said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund, which supports “the legal defense of religious freedom, the sanctity of life, marriage and the family.”

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley at the SpeakUp Movement Church Blog: As of the time I write this blog, the IRS has not responded in any way to any of the pastors who participated in Pulpit Freedom Sunday. In fact, pastors have been participating in Pulpit Freedom Sunday since 2008 but no pastor has ever been punished or censored by the IRS for a Pulpit Freedom Sunday sermon.

A few weeks ago ADF Attorney Erik Stanley appeared on WallBuilders Live to discuss the Black Robe Regiment and ADF’s Pulpit Initiative. |  MP3 audio 17:56 mins

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley appeared on the Bott Radio Network to discuss the ADF Pulpit Initiative. | MP3 audio 29 min

FFRF.org: “Explicit political endorsements on his church’s website by a California pastor drew the attention of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has requested an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service. Churches are barred from endorsing candidates as a condition of their tax-exempt status.”

Dakota Voice: Eric Stanley of the Alliance Defense Fund was on Wallbuilders Live yesterday (they’re having some great shows, lately), discussing the Pulpit Initiative . . . The Alliance Defense Fund is an organization established to defend religious liberty in America from the assaults of secularists that have become so common in recent decades. They have allied attorneys all over the country who can help defend churches, pastors, ministry leaders and lay Christians to maintain their religious liberties. In many ways, ADF is the counter to the anti-Christian, anti-American ACLU.

Florida Independent: John Stemberger, the president of the anti-gay and anti-abortion Florida Family Policy Council, has started a new project to get as many religious voters to the polls as possible . . . He also adds that pastors “have a virtual ‘army’ of attorneys at [their] disposal.” He cites the Alliance Defense Fund and the Liberty Counsel (who largely defend anti-abortion activists) as resources for the pastors.

WorldNetDaily: For example, Blair participates in the annual Pulpit Freedom Day assembled by the Alliance Defense Fund that is intended to restore free speech to pastors who speak from their pulpits about the moral issues of the day. It is in opposition to an IRS rule that says pastors are not supposed to mention those issues in connection with political candidates.

USCatholic.org: Deirdre Dessingue, associate general counsel at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “But there has been a change in the mood.” She cited several factors affecting that change in mood . . . and continuing efforts by the Alliance Defense Fund to draw the IRS into a battle with a church whose pastor has endorsed a political candidate from the pulpit. “Churches should be allowed to decide for themselves what they want to talk about,” said Erik Stanley, ADF senior legal counsel. “The IRS should not be the one making the decision by threatening to revoke a church’s tax-exempt status.” That approach is far from the stand taken by the USCCB, however.

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley on the Mark Larson Show with Pastor Jim Garlow. | MP3 audio 23:09 mins | Pulpit Freedom Sunday

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: Every time I mention Pulpit Freedom Sunday, I generally get two basic objections to the concept of Pulpit Freedom. Yet these objections in some way are either misguided or just flat out wrong.

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley at Speak Up Movement Church Blog: A total of 539 pastors participated in Pulpit Freedom Sunday which was a massive increase from the 100 pastors that participated last year.

CNN.com: “We basically see Pulpit Freedom Sunday as a means of protecting a pastor’s right to speak freely from the pulpit without fearing government censorship in any way,” said Erik Stanley, ADF’s senior legal counsel and organizer of Pulpit Freedom Sunday.

El Paso Times: But the lawyer, Joel Oster, said that did not mean the group violated Texas election law. And even if they did, the law is unconstitutional, he said . . . “We will concede,” said Oster, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, a national group dedicated to helping churches challenge legal limits to their political activity. “We admit that they had established in their petition clear and convincing evidence” of churches’ participation.

KVIA El Paso: Brown has maintained he did not break the law. Joel Oster, Brown’s newest attorney from the Alliance Defense Fund, argues that the Supreme Court decided that it is perfectly legal for the recall group to mount their campaign against Cook and the two city representatives because it falls under freedom of speech, even if that campaign was carried out through churches like Brown’s ministry. Brown’s attorneys also contend the election code itself is unconstitutional and should not be enforced.

OMB Watch: According to the Alliance Defense Fund, the more than 475 pastors who registered to participate in Pulpit Freedom Sunday “committed to preach sermons that present biblical perspectives on the positions of electoral candidates.” Garlow described his sermon in two parts: in one section, he would discuss issues like same-sex marriage and abortion, and in another, he would discuss candidates.

KFOX El Paso: Oster said, “A pastor should not have to vet his sermons by Uncle Sam. When a pastor preaches his sermons he does not have to get approval from the government for what he says.”

WorldNetDaily: A headline in the Washington Times – “IRS Has No Business Censoring Pastors – First Amendment Supersedes Tax Regulation” – accompanies attorney Erik Stanley’s article, which includes the following: “To even suggest that any governmental agency or official has the right to punish a pastor because of something he says from the pulpit is not only offensive but unconstitutional. No pastor should ever have to dance around an issue or self-censor his sermon because of an Internal Revenue Service rule. In America, we value everyone’s constitutionally protected right to free speech and free exercise of religion. Nonetheless, there exists just such an IRS rule. It’s known as the Johnson Amendment. Getting rid of it was the motivation behind the Alliance Defense Fund’s fourth annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday, which took place this past Sunday.

KTSM News Channel 9 (includes video): The law firm is called the Alliance Defense Fund. It’s a private organization that provides free legal service for people when they feel their first amendment right has been violated. Attorney Joel Oster based in Kansas City, MO will provide free legal counsel for Brown.

Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed a counterclaim Friday against the mayor of El Paso, Texas in a lawsuit the mayor initiated against Tom Brown Ministries, the Word of Life Church of El Paso, El Pasoans for Traditional Family Values, and other local citizens

Steve Klingaman at Open Salon: In a move designed to provoke the Internal Revenue Service into action, activist clergymen and women (if there are any women) organized by the hardcore conservative Alliance Defense Fund intend to skirt or cross the line between religious and political speech from the pulpit. But just where is the line? According to IRS regulations, the line is no line in the sand, more serpentine calligraphy in quicksand. In this prohibition, context is everything, and, I’ll warn you, it’s complicated.

Forward.com: When the Alliance Defense Fund started organizing annual preacher protests in 2008, only a handful of churches joined in, but the number quadrupled in the past year alone. This is a dangerous movement that needs to be forcefully answered. Pastor Anu may run a fine church, but his argument that ministers should have the same free speech rights as ordinary citizens is simply indefensible.

Tobin Grant at Christianity Today: “ADF is not trying to get politics into the pulpit. Churches can decide for themselves that they either do or don’t want their pastors to speak about electoral candidates. The point of the Pulpit Initiative is very simple: the IRS should not be the one making the decision by threatening to revoke a church’s tax-exempt status. We need to get the government out of the pulpit,” said Stanley.

And make no mistake: every political question is, at root, a moral issue. That, of course, is the underlying reason for every legal effort to silence and sabotage the participation of churches and pastors in the political process . . .

Jacques Berlinerblau at the Washington Post: The Alliance Defense Fund has been training pastors to preach politics from the pulpit in violation of the IRS’s 501 (c) (3) provision. And they have filmed the proceedings. And sent the evidence to the IRS. And the IRS has done nothing (as best we can tell). Leading me to wonder if tax cheats ought just make a little video chronicling their crimes and send it to the IRS in a preemptive, innoculating sort of a gesture. [more . . . ]

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at the TellADF Blog: Thanks to your generous prayers and support, the Alliance Defense Fund continues to work to protect the right of all Americans to hear and speak the Truth. The depth and breadth of our ADF activities this past week illustrates how much God is graciously enabling us to do in defense of religious liberty. To cite just three quick examples . . .

The American Independent: Part of the mission of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), the public-policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, led by Richard D. Land, is to expand, generally, the freedom of religious groups to influence law and policy. This past Sunday, Land was among more than 400 religious leaders to participate in the Alliance Defense Fund’s Pulpit Freedom Sunday . . .

A link to the list can be found at this page.

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 18:25 mins

Grand Forks Herald | Grand Forks, North Dakota: In northern Minnesota, the church where the Rev. Gus Booth has preached politics in the past took another swing on Sunday at goading the Internal Revenue Service into a fight . . . “The government should not tell houses of worship what they can and cannot say,” Booth said.

CBN News: The IRS cannot be a content manager or regulator,” Rev. Kevin Baird, Legacy Church in West Ashley, S.C., told The Post and Courier. “There is a legitimate intimidation factor that comes from the IRS and the Left to squelch conservative pastors,” he said.

The Colorado Independent (includes video): The ADF doesn’t seem to be arguing that such political practices from the pulpit is legal, but that it should be legal. The group views the restrictions placed on church as a part of their tax-exempt status as an undue shackle, which they believe violates the constitutional right of free speech . . . Below, video of Bishop Phillip Porter, Jr., or Aurora, CO, speaking in favor of Pulpit Freedom Sunday . . .

The Post and Courier, Charleston SC: The Rev. Kevin Baird of Legacy Church in West Ashley said pastors should be able to “teach the Scriptures and apply them to issues without fear of the Johnson amendment.” . . . “The IRS cannot be a content manager or regulator,” Baird said. “There is a legitimate intimidation factor that comes from the IRS and the left to squelch conservative pastors.” . . . The Alliance Defense Fund, an affiliation of Christian attorneys and organizations led by Alan Sears, is challenging the ban.

Beliefnet News: How many pastors participated? The Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit legal defense group, sponsors the annual event, which started with 33 pastors in 2008. This year spokespersons have called on 1,000 religious leaders to sign on. [embeds ADF video]

NYTimes.com: The Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit legal defense group whose founders include James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, sponsors the annual event, which started with 33 pastors in 2008. This year, Glenn Beck has been promoting it, calling for 1,000 religious leaders to sign on and generating additional interest at the beginning of a presidential election cycle . . . “It’s frustrating,” said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel at Alliance Defense. “The law is on the books but they don’t enforce it, leaving churches in limbo.”

God Discussion: On October 2, 2011, pastors across the country are going to participate in a yearly act of civil disobedience: they’re going to risk their 501(c) 3 tax exempt status by openly endorsing or supporting political candidates from the pulpit on Sunday. [embeds ADF video]

The Tennessean | tennessean.com: “The issue of whether the IRS can censor what a pastor says in the pulpit has never been tested in court,” said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.

Examiner.com: “Pastors and churches shouldn’t live in fear of being punished or penalized by the government,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. “Churches should be allowed to decide for themselves what they want to talk about. The IRS should not be the one making the decision by threatening to revoke a church’s tax-exempt status. No government-recognized status can be conditioned upon the surrender of a constitutionally protected right. That’s why ADF started Pulpit Freedom Sunday: to get the government out of the pulpits of America.”

TaxProf Blog: Today is the fourth annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday, as 500 pastors plan to discuss politics and candidates in their sermons, flouting the law against campaigning by churches.  New York Times, The Political Pulpit . . . (includes video)

Why pastors shouldn’t play politics from pulpit | Alaska Dispatch: As background, the Alliance Defense Fund argues that no house of worship should ever be taxed by government. And people who donate money to a church should be able to deduct such gifts on their income taxes. It is those donations that are at the heart of the constitutional battle.

More Pastors Sign on to Preach Politics From Pulpit, Christian News: This Sunday, more than 400 pastors will be using their pulpits to preach politics and challenge the Internal Revenue Service’s regulations that restrict religious leaders from endorsing candidates and discussing policies with their congregations . . . “Our goal has always been … to have the Johnson amendment declared unconstitutional,” Stanley said.

To even suggest that any governmental agency or official has the right to punish a pastor because of something he says from the pulpit is not only offensive, but unconstitutional. No pastor should ever have to dance around an issue or to self-censor his sermon when he preaches from the pulpit because of an IRS rule. In America, we value everyone’s constitutionally protected right to free speech and free exercise of religion.

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley and Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 24:55mins

475+ pastors from 46 states plus Puerto Rico embrace constitutional freedom over IRS censorship

Dakota Voice: Pastors from more than 475 churches nationwide have registered to participate in the Alliance Defense Fund’s fourth annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday on Oct. 2. The total reflects nearly five times as many participants as last year’s total of approximately 100 pastors.

CSMonitor.com: The group pushing this legal test, the Alliance Defense Fund, has been enlisting more and more pastors since 2008. The yearly autumn protest, called Pulpit Freedom Sunday, is timed just before elections. Many participating pastors are eager to turn the US into “a Christian nation” by playing a direct role in politics.

Iowa Independent: “This is an appalling attempt by the Religious Right to turn houses of worship into house of partisan politics,” said Rev. Berry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. “Americans attend church for spiritual guidance, not to get a list of candidates to vote for on election day.” The Alliance Defense Fund, a religiously motivated legal group which considers itself as a counter to the American Civil Liberties Union, is encouraging pastors throughout the nation to “freely speak to their congregations on political matters from a biblical perspective.

ADF Attorney Erik Stanely at Speak Up Movement Church Blog: Yet a growing nationwide movement of pastors are refusing to be intimidated. They are willing to stand up and exercise their constitutional rights of freedom of speech and free exercise of religion by boldly preaching on Pulpit Freedom Sunday. These pastors are courageously regaining the freedom of the pulpit.

LaTimes.com Editorial: On Sunday, hundreds of preachers are expected to celebrate something called “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” by sermonizing about the moral qualifications of candidates for public office. The event is organized by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization. The alliance is offering legal representation to clergy whose remarks might run afoul of the prohibition of politicking by churches. It’s a challenge the Internal Revenue Service should take seriously.

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley on Grounded with Ryan Dobson to discuss the Pulpit Initiative. | MP3 audio 29:36 mins

OneNewsNow.com: “All of this is related to a group called the Tennessee Equality Project that made an effort to unseat some councilmen who were opposed to an ordinance that would have provided preferential treatment for sexual orientation,” explains Erik Stanley, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). [more quotes from Erik]

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot appeared on KFLC Good Morning Ozarks with Charlie Ingram and Keith O’Neal to discuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 19:15 min

KETKNBC.com: The pastors, along with the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based nonprofit Alliance Defense Fund, are reacting to a law stating that churches are not allowed to support politicians from the pulpit, according to the ADF. | www.pulpitfreedom.org

Christian Post: Yet Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defense Fund believes the guidelines should be discarded. “Pastors have a right to speak about Biblical truths from the pulpit without fear of punishment,” he said in a statement. Referring to the enforcement of federal tax regulation, Stanley continued, “No one should be able to use the government to intimidate pastors into giving up their constitutional rights.”

Jim Garlow appeared on the Glenn Beck Program to dicuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 11:48 mins

Erik Stanley at Townhall: Yet it remains a fact that every Sunday, when pastors in America ascend the pulpit, they face the cruel and unusual prospect of exchanging their natural, God-given right to free speech for a government-ordained lexicon (if they want to keep their tax-exempt status).

Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State at OpposingViews.com: It’s going to be a long election season, and we’re bound to see a lot more of this. The Alliance Defense Fund and other Religious Right organizations are already prodding churches to flagrantly violate the law by endorsing and/or opposing candidates from the pulpit. These groups hope to build a church-based political machine to elect their favored candidates to office. Once in power, these people will pursue a fundamentalist political agenda, work to enact laws that impose their narrow version of faith on all of us and assail the church-state wall.

Love Your Neighbor ministry seeks used cookbook donations – St. Petersburg Times: Brooksville Wesleyan Church, 8168 Jasmine Drive, will recognize Pulpit Freedom Sunday at 10:30 a.m. Oct. 2. The Alliance Defense Fund created the day in 2008 to encourage pastors to preach boldly and biblically about current events. Visit pulpitfreedom.com

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley appeared on Koinonea with Tom Brown. | MP3 audio 12:17 mins | The Pulpit Initiative

One of the biggest churches in the Mid-South is in the middle of a heated political controversy. The Tennessee Equality Project claims Bellevue Baptist is in violation of its (501) (c) (3) tax exempt status by having up a very clear link up to Family Action of Tennessee, a website that appears to endorse certain city council members.

The Rev. Michael Rodriguez was transferred to a new parish because his stance on morality and the upcoming recall election “raised serious issues regarding whether his participation could be attributed to the Diocese of El Paso”and his parish,El Paso Catholic Bishop Armando X. Ochoa said. Since 2010, Rodriguez had publicly condemned homosexuality . . .

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 17:50 mins

OneNewsNow.com: ADF attorney Erik Stanley does not believe pastors and churches should live in fear of being punished or penalized by the government in any way. “Keeping the gospel central to what is preached is not in conflict with addressing the subject of political candidates when that is warranted,” he contends. “These survey results show that the desire to keep the gospel central does not mean that pastors want the IRS to regulate their sermons under the threat of revoking their church’s tax-exempt status.”

JDSupra: According to the survey conducted by LifeWay Research in August, 79% of Protestant pastors ‘strongly disagreed’ while 7% ‘somewhat disagreed’ with the statement, “The government should regulate sermons by revoking a church’s tax exemption if its pastor approves of or criticizes candidates based on the church’s moral beliefs or theology.” The survey was conducted among 1,000 Protestant pastors and sponsored by the Alliance Defense Fund.

Pantagraph: But the religious leaders are bolstered by well-funded Christian legal organizations supporting their cause. The most prominent — the Alliance Defense Fund, a group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., that spent $32 million in 2010 — is challenging a 1954 tax code amendment that prohibits pastors, as leaders of tax-exempt organizations, from supporting or opposing candidates from the pulpit. The fund sponsors Pulpit Freedom Sunday, in which it offers free legal representation to churches whose pastors preach about political candidates and are then audited by the Internal Revenue Service. (So far, no IRS investigations have been triggered.) Last fall, 100 churches participated — up from 33 in 2008. This year’s Pulpit Freedom Sunday scheduled for Oct. 2, is expected to draw more than 500 churches. [Kelly Shackelford of Liberty Institute quoted]

VirtueOnline: The religious leaders are bolstered by well-funded Christian legal organizations supporting their cause. The most prominent – the Alliance Defense Fund, a group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., that spent $32 million in 2010 – is challenging a 1954 tax code amendment that prohibits pastors, as leaders of tax-exempt organizations, from supporting or opposing candidates from the pulpit.

Baptist Press: The research, sponsored by the Alliance Defense Fund, followed a related study conducted by LifeWay Research in October 2010 that found Protestant pastors also largely believe candidates for public office should not be endorsed from the pulpit. | Also on PR Web