Ministers DO have the right.

The issue has to do with them being tax-exempt as a church.  If they want that status, then the govt asks them to not promote a specific candidate (though they can promote issues).

No church or ministry is "forced" to be tax-exempt.

Hubbaduh is right. If the church is paying taxes to the government, then they can advise their members who to vote for because then the church, the INSTITUTION itself, is monetarily involved in the government. But if they're not forking over money, then they shouldn't really be involved in political campaigns.

I think the issue here has to do with being politically involved/influential without having to pay taxes. They're not limiting pastors from saying it altogether, political promotion/bashing is just not allowed in institutions that are given tax breaks.

I don't think ANYONE should right out TELL you who to vote for, nor should you blindly believe anyone who tells you. But I do think it's important that pastors be able to talk about the issues (which they are allowed to do) and plain out state facts about each canidate...especially when it comes to issues that violate our morals and our faith. From then on it is in the hands of the congregation.

church and state are supposed to be separated, right? 

I don't agree with people in a leadership position voicing their opinions regarding their political views, because it can sway the general audience one way or the other. As long as the audience is of sound mind and are able to make their own determinations based on their own views and research. I don't see a problem with it, but normally all I see are people who lack the ability to do for themselves and rely on others to make decisions for them. I also disagree with teachers voicing their political views openly in a classroom setting. Ministers may voice their opinions as long as they aren't on the pulpit, and it is an intimate setting, where people are able to provide their own ideas into the mix. 

I can understand why a minister would want to advice their audience. The decisions people in political positions directly effect the church sometimes, regardless of the churches tax exempt status.

Is the calling to ministry to a call to represent a candidate/political party or a call to represent Christ?

Ministers have freedom of speech like the rest of us Americans. They should be able to discuss their political views. God gave us brains to use & we shouldn't follow anyone blindly.

Should followers be advised from the pulpit? No. What does that have to do with worshipping God?

One has to wonder - restricting certain parts of speech is the beginning of a slippery descent into more restricted speech.

I think its ok for a minister to recommend that we do not vote for pro-abortion candidates.  Anything which opposes the good hurts our society, so to say nothing out of fear could lead to the demise of our country -- in which case there would be no separation of church and state debate; the church would still be there, but the state could come to an end.  People who care about the state must speak publicly about what is right and wrong.

@naphtali_deer@xanga - The call to ministry iwould appear to be more to represent Christ rather than any political candidate. If ministers spent more time focusing on politcal candidates then on Christ's mission, they would not be giving Him the honor He is due.

The fact is that for 160 years, prior to enactment of the 1954 amendment to the federal tax code, ministers were free to preach for or against the election of any candidate.  We are not talking here about whether such preaching is a good idea or a bad one.  Just whether doing so was lawful, and it was lawful.

Consider just one real life, pre-1954 example:

In the run up to the election, two ministers were published broadly as describing the candidate a heretic.  The ministers preached from their pulpits against the election of the candidate.  The basis for calling the candidate a heretic was found in the candidate's published writings. 

The candidate had expressed the opinion that Africans who lived among the American people were a different and lower order of creation than the White man.  The candidate's conclusions reflected his attempt to apply scientific principles to his real life, daily observations.  The problem for the writer, of course, was that the Holy Scriptures do not describe God's creation of man as having produced two separate races with a higher white race and a lower black race resulting.

Today, undoubtedly, the candidate would never utter such thoughts.  Today, undoubtedly, the candidate would shred and burn even a private diary containing such thoughts.  Back then, however, Thomas Jefferson was too overly impressed with his personal genius to keep his dark thoughts private (or even to recognize that they were dark thoughts).

In the end, Jefferson's election was not by a popular majority.  Instead, it was the constitutional debacle that resulted in a tie vote in the Electoral College, the resolution of the election by the House of Representatives, and ultimately, to the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment.

* * * * * * *  * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In my view, it is a distortion of the Constitution to tolerate the patently unconstitutional speech restriction that results in the silent pulpit.

Our history is inextricably bound up with the liberated (not liberal) pulpit.  Read "Propaganda and the American Revolution" or a similar work and you get a grasp of the role of the preaching pulpit in fomenting the American Revolution that led to our liberation from England.  Read Ellis Sandoz's "Political Sermons of the Founding Era" and you get a grasp of the command that the pulpit had for instructing not just voters but also elected officials in the Word of God and His revealed purposes.

I can't predict success for the Alliance Defense Fund's campaign.  But I can hope for it, and admire the men and women who participate in it for their courageous stands.

Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
The American Center for Law and Justice, Inc.

@whataboutbahb@xanga - I understand what the law says, and I hear what you are saying in regard to the law. Explaining the law was neither the question I read nor answered.

I do believe this is unconstitutional. There are other organizations with private memberships whose leadership not only endorse, but lobby for candidates all the time at local, state & national levels. I am old enough to recall the Reverends Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesse Jackson using their positions to influence voters, and in Jackson's case, even to run for office. It is interesting to me that the law is going to be enforced now that more conservative voices are speakiing out.

Politics are in my face all the time, esp. now. I am registered as an Independent, so I get nuisance calls and unwanted mail from both sides - one might even say a politically balanced waste of time and money. Even the government's Do Not Call list doesn't apply to political calls. Someone else's computer has the right to impose their views on me, yet a particular person can't? I don't recall becoming a 'Stepford voter' in a robotic society.

I would despise having my worship services turned into political forums, yet I have the freedom to choose how & where to worship, like anyone else in this country. I have the option to worship where there is true worship if that is what I want.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Evelyn Beatrice Hall.

Under our constitutional rights of free speech, I believe it is wrong to impose restricitons on any particular group of people. I believe ministers and other folks affected by that law are correct to challenge its constitutionality.

You may disagree with me. That is one beauty of the freedoms we have in this country; freedoms which were purchased & maintained at a great cost in lives by people who never even knew us because they believed in defending to the death our right to have them.

No, ministers should NOT tell people how to vote. i don't care if you call it "advise" but it's political agenda just the same. The same kind of stuff they acuse homosexuals of doing.

Do they have the right to state their opinion? Heck yeah! Just as much as celebrities, and ministers should have more credibility for people to actually listen. But tell/ advise who to vote for? A resounding NO.