LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY eiredrake) All Saints Episcopal Church Won't Comply With IRS Probe

Churches should be able to speak out on issues all they want. But they should not go around saying "You should vote for X candidate'. This really isn't that hard to understand. Don't do it, or lose your tax exempt status. Perhaps this penalty should be for churches that do it a lot, rather than the first time. Maybe the first couple of times you get fined or something. Then after the 3rd time you're suddenly a for profit corporation whether you like it or not.

What I don't see, however, is conservative churches being penalized this way. Why are we not investigating all those conservative megachurches out there who got the Devil elected to the white house? They were trotting out voters in droves. I doubt very much that they didn't specifically vote for Bush or you're not a Christian. Why are we investigating a liberal church for having a guest speaker who spoke out against Bush?

I maybe giving our overlord too much credit but, could it be coercion? Could the guys who work Bush's arms and legs have gotten together and decided on a way to lock down even further the ability of the government to prevent church abuse. If they target a liberal church who did something that wasn't really against the law or was only slightly over the line, they know that the church will fight back and that the case against it will lose - thus creating a legal precident that they can exploit to give the evil churches out there a legal loophole when they DO go over the top. "Well when the All Saint's Episcopal Church said not to vote for Bush they let THEM get away with it. Now we want to endorse <>"

Am I overanalyzing this? Maybe I'm a conspiracy nut, I don't know. But this seems like when I sacrifice pawns in chess to get a rook or bishop because my opponent is too stupid to notice it is a trap.