Trump against barrier to pulpit politicking
Says he’ll ‘destroy’ 63-year-old law
President Donald Trump vowed to “totally destroy” a 63-year-old curb on pulpit politicking — even as he considers an executive order that would favor religious groups and businesses in conflicts with LGBT people and reproductive rights.
The seismic shifts along the church-state fault line — which would directly affect southwestern Pennsylvania religious groups in their legal battles over Obamacare — are unfolding on top of Tuesday’s appointment of conservative Judge Neil Gorsuch to a Supreme Court that is closely divided on religious liberty issues.
The White House is considering a draft order that would halt any federal penalties on religious organizations that, on grounds of conscience, refuse services to samesex spouses or to unmarried heterosexual couples who live together, or that don’t recognize transgender identities.
By late afternoon, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was sending out an “action alert” urging supporters to ask President Trump to sign such an executive order.
Among other things, it would immediately halt the enforcement of an Obamacare mandate for contraception coverage for employees of faith-based charities and schools.
Catholic Charities of Pittsburgh, the Beaver Falls-based Geneva College and other faith-based groups had fought a provision of the Affordable Care Act before the Supreme Court last year because it mandated that female employees have access through their health plans to contraceptives, including forms they contended might cause early abortions. The high court punted the case back to lower courts, where they are pending, even as the GOP Congress plans to repeal Obamacare.
The draft executive order, first
reported by the Nation magazine online, would also ensure that faith-based charities, including adoption agencies, would be eligible for grants even if they deny service to same-sex couples.
The bishops conference says the order could reverse “years of unprecedented erosion” or religious liberty. But Rachel Tiven, chief executive of Lambda Legal, an LGBTrights organization, told the Washington Post it was an “invitation to theocracy.”
Mr. Trump’s comments came at Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast, an annual bipartisan event sponsored by a Christian organization.
He drew applause by pledging to “totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution.”
He would need Congress to make any changes to the amendment before signing it — although the draft executive order would limit enforcement of tax penalties of religious groups that speak out on “moral or political issues.”
His statement still has legal scholars waiting to see the fine print.
Does Mr. Trump mean removing the part of the ban that gets the most attention — explicitly endorsing a candidate from a tax-exempt pulpit, even though that’s rarely enforced even when it happens?
Or does he want to blow up the whole law, which could enable churches — and non-religious charities — to turn into full-throttle political action committees if they wanted to?
In the latter case, donors could funnel tax-deductible donations into political campaign coffers. Donors can’t get a tax deduction by giving directly to a campaign or PAC.
“There’s a really good reason for using charitable dollars only for charitable purposes,” said Nick Cafardi, a law professor at Duquesne University who has represented Catholic institutions. “Politics, no matter how you slice it, is not charity. Removing the restriction opens up all sorts of possible abuse, not the least of which is the perversion of religion.”
A small but vocal group of pastors has been openly defying the ban in recent years, daring the Internal Revenue Service to punish them, with little response.
A LifeWay Research survey last year found that fourth-fifths of Americans thought it was inappropriate for a pastor to endorse from the pulpit. But most people also opposed tax penalties on churches that do endorse.
The Rev. Liddy Barlow, executive minister of Christian Associates of Southwest Pennsylvania, a broad-based coalition of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant denominations, noted that churches already have broad rights of expression.
“The Johnson Amendment as currently enforced does not prevent churches from being political,” she said in a statement. “It is legal and wholly appropriate for religious organizations to be active in the public square and to speak out on issues of common concern with a perspective informed by their faith. The amendment does, however, prevent churches from being partisan by endorsing candidates for public office. To me, that seems appropriate: our allegiance is to Jesus, not to any party or political leader.”
Charles Haynes — the founding director of the Religious Freedom Center of the Washington-based Newseum Institute and a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center — said he was surprised by the breadth of Mr. Trump’s pledge.
“The part of it that has been most problematic for many conservative religious people is the ban on endorsement from the pulpit,” he said. But removing the Johnson Amendment entirely “would mean there are no boundaries for how donations were used.That would be a radical change.”
Many houses of worship do support candidates in roundabout ways, said Mr. Haynes, such as highlighting issues that they share with a preferred candidate.
And in fact, any house of worship can endorse a candidate even now, but “they just don’t have the tax advantages,” Mr. Haynes said.