Alliance Defense Fund

Under pressure from the religious-right legal outfit Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), the city of Elk River removed an ordinance that banned religious groups from holding worship services in the city’s library. The council voted on Aug. 17 to remove the restriction.

The Internal Revenue Service’s investigations into alleged tax violations by two Minnesota-based churches have been thwarted by procedural problems. Those cases highlight the special tax-exempt status churches receive under federal law, but also problems at the IRS. While reforms are underway, the religious right is planning to take advantage of a neutered IRS by encouraging a mass law-breaking day when churches endorse candidates from the pulpit.

An initiative spurred by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a religious right legal outfit affiliated with James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, has prompted complaints to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), including one against Minnesota’s Warroad Community Church. The ADF says that at least 30 churches participated in its Pulpit Freedom Sunday and endorsed presidential [...]

It must have seemed an attractive idea at the time. But a much-heralded push to organize mass violations of an IRS ban on political endorsements in churches seems to be attracting few takers. And the IRS has already pledged to review complaints about any churches that do participate.

An Arizona-based front group for the religious empire of James (Focus on the Family) Dobson, the Alliance Defense Fund, is encouraging en masse violation of the IRS rule that prohibits clergy from endorsing political candidates. They’re asking ministers of kindred spirit across the country to endorse presidential candidates on Sunday, September 28.