Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Challenge set for pulpit endorsement ban

|
|
 
  
Published: Sept. 8, 2008 at 2:02 AM

CHICAGO, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- A conservative advocacy group plans to test a U.S. legal prohibition on clergy endorsing candidates from the pulpit, The Washington Post reported Monday.

The Alliance Defense Fund maintains that the ban is unconstitutional and plans to try to make its point by having several pastors violate the Internal Revenue Service rule Sept. 28, the newspaper said.

The organization, based in Arizona, intends to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the prohibition, which was imposed in a 1954 amendment to the Internal Revenue Code that bans non-profit, tax-exempt entities from participating or intervening in "any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office."

ADF attorney Erik Stanley told the Post: "It is the job of the pastors of America to debate the proper role of church in society. It's not for the government to mandate the role of church in society."

A group of Christian and Jewish clergy plans to petition the IRS Monday to head off the planned protest, calling it an assault on the rule of law, the Post said.

© 2008 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Notable deaths of 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala
Indianapolis 500 Presidential Medal of Freedom Memorial Day around the nation
Additional Top News Stories
1 of 20
Singer Janelle Monae arrives at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards in Universal City, California
View Caption
Singer Janelle Monae arrives for the MTV Movie Awards at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California. UPI/Jim Ruymen
fark
Traveling to the U.S.? If invited to a dinner party, bring a gift of wine, but not cash or toiletries...
Man turns dead pet cat into remote-controlled helicopter, calls it art (w/WTF pics)
"Good News" clubs teach children in public schools the Biblical importance of killing all nonbelievers...
Five arrested in prostitution sting. Article lists their names, ages and distance from a church
Photoshop this power tower technician
Driving drunk and unlicensed, with a kid not even buckled let alone in a safety seat, en route to...