All well and good, but it just seems to me that somewhere there is a disconnect between the forms (501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4)) and the underlying reality. That is all that I meant to say. The taxed dollars and the nontaxed dollars may be working toward the same substantive end or objective.
-----Original Message----- From: Douglas Laycock [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 11:02 AM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: Rick Garnett on Campaigning from the Pulpit -- and Tax Status Corporations and other nonprofits do it all the time. The contributions to the 501(c)(4) are not tax deductible. Douglas Laycock University of Texas Law School 727 E. Dean Keeton St. Austin, TX 78705 512-232-1341 (phone) 512-471-6988 (fax) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Newsom Michael Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 5:50 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: Rick Garnett on Campaigning from the Pulpit -- and Tax Status So I take it that it is proper for the minister to exhort his congregation, in a sermon, to write checks for a 501(c)(4). I wonder. -----Original Message----- From: Douglas Laycock [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 6:47 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: Rick Garnett on Campaigning from the Pulpit -- and Tax Status If they write a check out of the 501(c)(3), they're guilty. They could have raised money for a 501(c)(4) to write that check. If the spiritual leader just talks, they're constitutionally protected in my view. If they start spending money to duplicate his political sermons, they're over the line. Follow the money is a pretty good rule here, both for religious liberty and for tax policy. The tax policy is that untaxed money should not be used for political purposes. Douglas Laycock University of Texas Law School 727 E. Dean Keeton St. Austin, TX 78705 512-232-1341 (phone) 512-471-6988 (fax) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Newsom Michael Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 5:41 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: Rick Garnett on Campaigning from the Pulpit -- and Tax Status I am not so sure that the line that Doug draws between political ads and sermons is clear. What about a sermon that exhorts the congregation to participate in a particular get-out-the-vote drive? ---Original Message----- From: Douglas Laycock [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 4:39 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: Rick Garnett on Campaigning from the Pulpit -- and Tax Status The reason these restrictions have been upheld as to 501(c)(3) organizations is that they can conduct their political activities through a 501(c)(4) or through a PAC. to the extent that that is true of churches (or any other not-for-profit), they should all be subject to the same rules. So when a church spends identifiable money on political ads, or leaflets, or get-out-the-drives, it could raise that money after tax through its PAC or 501(c)(4) affiliate, and it should be required to do so. Some things can not be done through the PAC or 501(c)(4) affiliate. the religious speech of the spiritual leader is not delegable; the same words from the staff member who leads the PAC or the 501(c)(4) affiliate is not the same statement, because it lacks the moral authority of the spiritual leader. And the cost of the minister's salary does not depend on what he says in a sermon; with or without touching on political matters, he would be giving a sermon anyway. The marginal cost of his mentioning politics is zero. So I would not let the IRS yank the tax exemption because of the political implications or the political literal meaning of moral or religious comments of a spiritual leader. Douglas Laycock University of Texas Law School 727 E. Dean Keeton St. Austin, TX 78705 512-232-1341 (phone) 512-471-6988 (fax) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 12:16 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics; Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Rick Garnett on Campaigning from the Pulpit -- and Tax Status Rick Garnett has an interesting Op-Ed in USA Today about politics in sermons: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-04-16-forum-religio n_x.htm Rick makes an excellent point, I think, about how debate on public issues -- and even partisan politics -- should not necessarily be checked at the church door. Indeed, at a conference here at Georgetown last week, there was some interesting discussion about how mainstream churches have been conspicuously absent from the public discussion regarding torture -- and about how the public perception and political salience of that issue might change dramatically if it were to become a major concern of important religious denominations. (That's a topic that's thread-worthy in and of itself: Isn't it really remarkable, and disheartening, that U.S. churches have been so quiet on the issue of torture?) Of course, issues such as torture, or abortion, or capital punishment, or poverty, can be discussed in churches, and in sermons, *without* any partisan political expression -- but sometimes it is and will be appropriate for preachers, and congregants, to name names (even when such n! ames ar e those of persons running for office), and even to urge political change. So I agree with Rick that there is nothing (necessarily) inappropriate about the insertion of political speech from the pulpit. But Rick then takes a major leap to the additional conclusion that churches should retain their 501(c)(3) status even if they engage in political activity -- a status that all other nonprofits would lose if they engaged in exactly the same expression. I know this argument is often made, but I must confess that I just don't see the case for it: An exemption for churches, and churches alone, would strike me as an Establishment Clause violation and, even more clearly, as a violation of the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses. It would be to give churches, because of their religious status, a *preferred* (not equal) place in public political dialogue; to give sermons a preferred status in that public political debate *because* their content is religious as well as political. Imagine, for instance, allowing religious lobbyists to have preferred access to officeholders, or, in the Widmar/Good News line of cases, to give religious assemblies or films *preferred* access to sch! ool roo ms and auditoria. Fairly unthinkable, it seems to me. Rick writes in support of such an exemption: "Churches and congregants, not bureaucrats and courts, must define the perimeter of religion's challenges." Absolutely true. But he then goes on to write: "It should not be for the state to label as electioneering, endorsement, or lobbying what a religious community considers evangelism, worship or witness." Why not? As long as the state's criteria for labeling something as "electioneering, endorsement, or lobbying" are entirely secular, and are exactly the same as the criteria used for other 501(c)(3)'s, what's the problem? The IRS is not (in Rick's words) "telling churches and religious believers whether they are being appropriately 'religious.'" The IRS is, or should be, completely indifferent as to whether the political speech of a church is "appropriate" from a religious perspective. But the IRS can, and must, determine whether that speech is the sort of partisan political speech that would disqualify a nonprofit -- r! eligiou s or otherwise -- from a preferred tax status that is granted in the first instance only on the condition that the corporation *not* engage in partisan political activity. Thoughts? _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
