Freepreach.org - Protecting the Free Expression of All Religious Traditions
Confusion about Church-State Separation Continues
Roman P. Storzer
Beliefnet criticizes "Evangelicals and conservative Christians" for exercising their free speech rights in a recent story suggesting that churches should stay out of politics. Unfortunately, the author perpetuates the myth that IRS censorship protects the constitution's "delicate church-state balance," and that corrective legislation threatens to disrupt that balance. But nothing in the First Amendment, or the rest of the Constitution, prevents churches from speaking on moral issues (which sometimes include political issues), and no court has ever held thus. Rather, the current rules were simply meant to protect Lyndon B. Johnson's own political aspirations in the 1950s.