In Election Season, IRS Sits in Judgment: Clergy Withhold Endorsements While Touting Free Speech From Pulpit

October 9, 2004, The Washington Post

“While the Supreme Court has upheld tax penalties for nonreligious charities’ political activity, we believe there is a difference of constitutional significance when religious ministers speak from the pulpit to their own congregations,” Becket Fund Chairman Kevin J. Hasson wrote in a Sept. 17 letter sent to 300,000 houses of worship across the country. “We encourage you to contact us immediately if the IRS threatens your institution’s tax-exempt status for anything you say from the pulpit. . . . We will defend free of charge any good faith religious message — left, right, or center, wisdom or nonsense — preached from the pulpit.”