Image: Ben McLeod

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.

City council member Paul Motin told the council in July that the reason for the restriction was to prevent the library from being used as a church.

“We didn’t want them to turn them into worship halls. Even though they could use it [for meetings] they couldn’t use it for prayer and worship services,” he said. “If they need them for meetings and things along those lines, I have no problems with that.”

“I guess I would have a problem if we started allowing the city facilities to be used for church services. There are other places available to them in the city,” Motin said.

Mayor Stephanie Klinzing said it was overuse that led the council to put the policy into place. “We have many start-up churches using public and private facilities in the city that occupy the same space every week for, sometimes, many years,” she said. “The council wanted to prevent this type of long-term, continual use by one group in order to open the spaces up to use by as many community groups and residents as possible.”

The city also had an ordinance that charged a higher fee to religious groups using a city park for worship services that was changed at the August meeting.

The policy stated: “The meeting room is available; free of charge, for use by community members for non-religious, non-commercial meetings, which are open to the public” and “usage may not be for prayer or other worship purposes.” The policy had been in effect for more than six years, according to Klinzing, and charged religious groups to use library meeting rooms for worship services. The library board passed a similar policy a year ago prohibiting religious use of it’s meeting rooms.

When the council repealed the ordinance Aug. 17, the library board followed suit and changed their policy to allow religious groups to use its rooms for worship.

“Excluding religious groups from a public library and charging them more than other non-profits to utilize a public park for religious expression is unconstitutional,” said Daniel Blomberg, an attorney for ADF, the group who made the complaint to the city, in a press release praising the decision. “We appreciate the city’s decision to respect the First Amendment rights of its citizens.”

But the legal issues surrounding the use of public facilities for worship services are murky.

In 2006, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a northern California county was within its rights to ban worship services from its public libraries. “[T]he County’s decision to exclude . . . religious worship services from the meeting room is reasonable in light of the library policy so that the . . . [library] is not transformed into an occasional house of worship,” the court wrote.

Religious groups can hold meetings, the court ruled, but when a religious group is turning public property into a regular church service, that constitutes government endorsement of religion.

The court said: “To conclude that the County’s exclusion of religious worship services from its government buildings is unreasonable would result in the ‘remarkable proposition that any public [building] opened for civic meetings must be opened for use as a church, synagogue, or mosque.’”

Klinzing disagreed with the the policy when it was implemented. “I was fully aware at the time that the city council approved the policy that it was blatantly unconstitutional,” she said. Klinzing says she went to the city attorney to get his opinion. “Our attorney would not render his opinion that there was anything illegal about the proposed policy,” she said.

“Regardless, I knew that some day it would be challenged and the city would have to — or be forced to — change the policy. And, as you know, that is exactly what has happened,” she said.

Klinzing said that the city council came up with a compromise that works for everyone — restrict the number of times an entity can rent a facility each year, but not prohibit any type of entity from renting it. “The change in the policy was very simply accomplished and the new language protects the facilities from the sole major concern of long-term, continual use by one organization without putting the city in violation of the U.S. Constitution,” she said.

Elk River’s public library has been used by Mayor Klinzing and others for a religious worship called “Pray Elk River.” According to press reports, as part of an effort to bring the “Kingdom of God” to the city, the mayor, pastors and local business leaders met every Tuesday for years at the Elk River Library to worship and pray. The primary goal was “for every person in the greater Elk River area to be prayed for by name.”

”We have a group of intercessors who pray for the town council, for the city, for me as mayor,” Klinzing told The New York Times in 2004.

But that group met in the old Elk River Library, which wasn’t covered under the city policy prohibiting worship. The group had to move to a different location in 2007, however, when the library moved into its new facility.

“The weekly use of a room in the former library by the Pray Elk River group was not a violation of the library’s policy because the policy covering the former library did not prohibit prayer and worship,” said Klinzing. “The group was not able to use the new library, however, because the new policy restricted prayer and worship.”

Image: Ben McLeod

The Internal Revenue Service’s investigations into alleged tax violations by two Minnesota-based churches, Living Word Christian Center (LWCC) and Warroad Community Church, have been thwarted by internal procedural problems.

These cases highlight the special tax-exempt status churches receive by law, but they also underscore problems at the IRS. In effect, the IRS has been unsuccessful in investigating allegations of tax violations by churches because years of conflicting congressional action have made it impossible for the IRS to follow its own rules.

And while the IRS has undertaken the potentially months-long process to reform its broken system, the religious right is seeking to exploit it by encouraging churches to flout the law and endorse candidates from the pulpit next month.

During the 2008 election, Warroad Community Church pastor Gus Booth, a Republican activist, apparently broke tax laws that prohibit electioneering by tax-exempt churches when he endorsed John McCain for president and trashed Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton from the pulpit. Last month the IRS suspended its investigation into the church, citing “a pending issue regarding the procedure used to initiate the case.”

In a similar case, the Minnesota Independent (then the Minnesota Monitor) identified questionable accounting practices by the Brooklyn Park–based Living Word Christian Center in 2007, which eventually led to an IRS investigation. But in January of this year, a U.S. District Court judge in Minneapolis also rejected an IRS summons to Living Word Christian Center because of procedural errors.

In both cases conflicting congressional actions prevented the agency from following its own rules.

In 1984, Congress passed the Church Audit Procedures Act to make it harder for the IRS to investigate church abuse of tax law. Among its provisions: An IRS official making a case against a church must hold a rank “no lower than that of a principal Internal Revenue officer for an internal revenue region.”

But thanks to a 1998 act of Congress, the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act, internal revenue regions (and their principal officers) were abolished, and the IRS was divided into sections servicing different categories of taxpayers, including individuals, businesses, and tax-exempt organizations like churches.

This change directly benefited Living Word Christian Center: It won its case in January because the IRS official charged with investigating the allegations wasn’t legally authorized to do so. Similarly, with no one on staff to legally investigate Warroad Community Church, the IRS suspended its investigation.

Reforms proposed by the IRS, entered into the Federal Register in early August, would clear up the contradiction, making the agency’s Director of Exempt Organizations the primary authority for investigating possible violations of tax law by churches. But the process of adopting those changes will be lengthy, involving a public comment period and hearings.

In the meantime, a group of churches plans to violate the law while there’s no one at the IRS to investigate.

On Sunday Sept. 27, the Alliance Defense Fund, a Focus on the Family–affiliated legal group, is encouraging pastors to endorse candidates from the pulpit. This year will be the second year of ADF’s “Pulpit Initiative.” Last year 33 churches participated, including Warroad Community Church.

The ADF’s Eric Stanley said that the campaign “is really part of a long, sustained campaign” to get a court challenge to IRS laws governing electioneering.

“We feel very confident that when we do, it will not take long for a federal judge to strike down this unconstitutional restriction on churches’ rights.”

Rob Boston, communications director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, writes that the new IRS rules should give churches participating in Pulpit Freedom Sunday a reason to pause.

“The fact that the IRS has issued these new rules is a sign that it wants to have a mechanism in place that will enable it to investigate churches that openly flout the law by endorsing or opposing candidates,” he wrote on the group’s blog. “Far from rolling over, it looks to me like the IRS is girding for battle. Churches that choose to follow the ADF down this misguided path can’t say they weren’t warned.”

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State filed formal complaints with the IRS on Monday targeting six churches that violated an IRS rule stipulating that churches that take advantage of the IRS’ tax breaks need to refrain from partisan politics or else pay their share of taxes.

Americans United identified the six churches based on media reports.

Pastor Jody Hice of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Bethlehem, Ga., said that McCain “holds more to a biblical world view” on issues of abortion and homosexuality and urged his congregation to vote for McCain and not Sen. Barack Obama.

Pastor Gus Booth of Warroad Community Church in Warroad, Minn., told his congregation, “We need to vote for the most righteous of candidates. And it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that out. The most righteous is John McCain.” He said that homosexuality is immoral and Obama’s refusal to denounce homosexuality and abortion is “evil, wicked and immoral. Obama condones what the Bible condemns,” he said.

Booth was a delegate to the Republican National Convention (RNC) and had previously endorsed McCain from the pulpit.

Pastor Paul Blair of Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, Okla., said from the pulpit, “As a Christian and as an American citizen, I will be voting for John McCain.”

Pastor Luke Emrich of New Life Church in West Bend, Wis., referenced abortion and said to his church, “I’m telling you straight up I would choose life. I would cast a vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin.” On Obama he said, “If a candidate supports something that is evil and wicked from a biblical perspective, then I have the right to call out the wickedness, and I have the right to say this is what this person stands for — this is wrong.”

The Rev. Wiley Drake of First Southern Baptist Church, Buena Park, Calif., came out strongly against Obama and said, “I am angry because the government and the IRS and some Christians have taken away the rights of pastors. I have a right to endorse anybody I doggone well please. And if they don’t like that, too bad. … According to my Bible and in my opinion, there is no way in the world a Christian can vote for Barack Hussein Obama. Mr. Obama is not standing up for anything that is tradition in America.”

He then endorsed Alan Keyes of the American Independent Party. “I’m here to tell you that I personally endorse Alan Keyes as our next president of the United States,” said Drake. “There’s no way a Christian can vote for Barack Obama. You could vote for John McCain. I want you to vote your conscience. Let the Bible act as your guide.”

One pastor missed his flight and couldn’t participate, although it’s likely that Bishop Robert Smith Sr. of Word of Outreach Center in Little Rock, Ark., would have endorsed McCain. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention.

The Rev. Francis Pultro of Calvary Chapel, Philadelphia, Pa., told his congregation, “As Christians, it’s clear we should vote for John McCain. He is the only candidate I believe a Christian can vote for.”

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said that pastors who violated the law should be ashamed.

“These pastors flagrantly violated the law and now must deal with the consequences,” said Lynn. “This is one of the most appalling Religious Right gambits I’ve ever seen. Church leaders are supposed to tend to Americans’ spiritual needs, not behave like partisan political hacks. I urge the IRS to act swiftly in these cases.”

He continued, “A pastor who knowingly violates federal tax law is setting a poor example for his or her congregation. Every pastor who took part in this stunt ought to be ashamed.”

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.

The so-called “Pulpit Initiative” (earlier MnIndy post) was launched by the Alliance Defense Fund, an offshoot of James (Focus on the Family) Dobson’s evangelical empire. As the Arizona-based organization’s website explains, this coming Sunday, September 28, is the target date for the effort. When IRS complaints ensue, ADF’s strategy is then to take individual cases to court in an attempt to overturn the IRS rule.

But as zero hour approaches, there are signs that few churches care to be so cavalier about their nonprofit tax status. Last week ADF officials pledged in an email response to Minnesota Independent, “We will have updated information regarding the pastors participating in the ‘Pulpit Initiative’ on our website… beginning on September 22nd, a week before Pulpit Freedom Sunday when the pastors give their messages.”

Three days after that self-appointed deadline, however, there is still no accounting of participants on the ADF website, however, and two subsequent emails to ADF official Erik Stanley asking for the update have gone unanswered. I phoned over a dozen metro-area evangelical churches to ask if any were planning to participate; so far, none has even called back. (I’ll update if any do.)

The Internal Revenue Service, meanwhile, said on Tuesday that it will review complaints over “Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” as the event is also called. Several former IRS employees have filed a complaint with their former employer alleging wrongdoing by ADF and participating churches. The prospect of legal action is of course no discouragement to ADF; it’s the plan. Churches, however, seem to be less sanguine about the idea.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State said they will be reporting churches who violate the law to the IRS. Said Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, “Pastors who are thinking of joining the ADF’s gambit still have time to change their minds and I urge them to do so.”

One Minnesota church pastor, however, has been very vocal about his plans to violate the law. Pastor Gus Booth of Warroad Community Church–located in a small town near the Canadian border–says he has no qualms about endorsing John McCain from the pulpit and in fact has been doing so all summer. Booth was also a delegate to the Republican National Convention.

Booth told National Public Radio on Wednesday, “Bottom line is, I’m a spiritual leader in this community, and spiritual leaders need to make decisions. We need to lead spiritually, and we need to be able to speak about the moral issues of the day. And right now, the moral issues of today are also the political issues of today.”

But not all religious leaders agree that mixing religion and politics is a good idea. The Anti-Defamation League criticized the move on Wednesday.

“Ministers and pastors, in their personal capacity, already have every right to support or oppose candidates for public office,” said Abraham H. Foxman, national director for ADL. “They can speak out on political issues, and promote voter participation and voter education initiatives. But politicizing churches coerces congregants, distorts the political system and poses a serious threat to religious liberty.”

James Dobson (left): A mass legal revolt from the pulpit?

In 2006, Pastor Mac Hammond stood up before his Living Word Christian Center audience in Brooklyn Park and said, “I can tell you personally that I’m going to vote for Michele Bachmann, because I’ve come to know her, what she stands for.” That speech prompted the attention of the Internal Revenue Service for violation of the church’s tax exempt status. The IRS sent the church a letter telling the church it cannot endorse politicians from the pulpit. Despite ample evidence that suggested Hammond knew that what he was doing was illegal, the case was closed.

Now 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.

Dubbed the “Pulpit Initiative,” the gambit represents a bet on lax enforcement by the IRS and, ultimately, a free-speech-based challenge to the law by a very conservative US Supreme Court.

Since 1954, churches have been prohibited from explicit involvement in political campaigns. To date, only one church in the last 50 years has lost its tax exemptions. That occurred in 1992, when an outfit called Branch Ministries took out full-page ads in the Washington Times and USA Today proclaiming, “Christian Beware” and warning that Bill Clinton espoused “policies that are in rebellion to God’s Laws.” Federal courts upheld the revocation of Branch Ministries’ tax status.

The ADF says the Pulpit Initiative is to encourage pastors to reclaim “their right to speak Scriptural truth from the pulpit” and to confront “an atmosphere of intimidation and fear for any church that dares to speak Scriptural truth about candidates for office.” The group says it has recruited churches in every state to endorse candidates on the chosen date.

But some clergy and former IRS officials say that ADF is violating the law just by organizing this sort of mass lawbreaking event.

“In the course of organizing and publicizing this event, ADF’s staff of attorneys is inducing churches to engage in conduct designed to violate Federal tax law in a direct and blatant manner,” wrote Mortimer M. Caplin, IRS commissioner during the Kennedy administration; Marcus S. Owens, former head of the IRS’s tax-exempt division; and Cono R. Namorato, the former head of the IRS office of professional responsibility. “This activity — coordinating mass violation of Federal tax law — is clearly ‘incompetent and disreputable conduct’… In our view, these ADF efforts present a direct threat to the integrity of our tax system.”

Beside Hammond’s 2006 endorsement of Bachmann, a northern Minnesota church made news this summer for endorsing Sen. John McCain for president — and flaunting it in the face of the IRS. Rev. Gus Booth, a pastor in Warroad, Minn., and Republican party activist, said in a May sermon, “If you are a Christian, you cannot support Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Both Hillary and Barack favor the shedding of innocent blood [abortion] and the legalization of the abomination of homosexual marriage.”

In a letter in his church bulletin, Booth wrote of the IRS, “I am letting you know that I will not be intimidated into silence when I believe that God wants me to address the great moral issues of the day, including who will be our next national leader.”

According to IRS data, it’s not just the religious right that runs afoul of the IRS. Of the 42 churches that were sent letters by the IRS in 2004, 18 endorsed a GOP candidate, 12 a Democratic and one a Green Party candidate. In 11 instances, the IRS did not determine a party affiliation.

A church in Southern California made news in 2004 when its pastor offered an anti-war sermon and the IRS pursued the case. The church insisted that it did not endorse a candidate. The IRS agreed and dropped the case.

The IRS has also gone after an entire denomination. The tax agency is investigating the United Church of Christ because of a speech that Obama gave at that group’s national meeting last year. Obama is a member of the UCC. That investigation was dropped with no penalties imposed.

The IRS is also investigating a Hartford, Conn., UCC church that Obama spoke at earlier this year.