City of Houston demands pastors turn over sermons

GreatDanish said:

Since churches are not allowed to "politicize" for tax-exemption purposes, any preaching on abortion, homosexuality, death penalty, etc., could be considered political advocacy.

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Frankly, everything can be and indeed is politicized. The problem is that those are also religious issues.

I agree with Jon on this and I have to say I am proud of the way he (and others who are not religious or have displayed skeptical attitudes of churches on this message board in the past) has reacted to this story. That is truly what this country was established to be. This lady is the exact opposite of what this country needs. She hates liberty, and she hates those that disagree with her and she is using her political power to silence those. If that isn't tyranny, I don't know what is.

GreatDanish said:

I haven't looked into this at all, but it has all the sounds of being a story taken out of context or "extremized." If true, yikes. I mean, this is scary but I can follow the thought. Since churches are not allowed to "politicize" for tax-exemption purposes, any preaching on abortion, homosexuality, death penalty, etc., could be considered political advocacy.

If it was up to me, I would either (A) eliminate "tax-exempt" status (501 (c)), or (B) eliminate property and income/corporate taxes leaving no need for 501 (c) status. Since we don't do those things, government HAS to keep an eye on churches to ensure they are jumping through the right hoops to remain tax-exempt. And that is not any kind of separation of church and state.

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This is a scary thought process and a slippery slope. It's also very close to censoring thoughts and beliefs.

Any topic can be deemed "political" at the whim of whoever is in charge.

chanson78 said:

At this point isn't it just the state/city government level? This case should and needs to be prosecuted with utmost haste. They especially need to make sure that the liberals aren't doing the standard "go after only the white christians because not too many people will care" bit. IE Like CA said, if this isn't universally applied across all denominations and faith in the city this should be relatively easy to get stopped.

I am not a big fan of churches, nor local governments in general, but if all of the things stated here are true, this is a pretty heinous overstepping of local governments power. It needs to be fought with extreme vigor from everyone, not just christians.

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At this point it is - but you know full well it won't stay at that level. And if they don't "win" this time, someone else will simply make another go at it. Ultimately, the revocation of such tax exempt status WILL happen and for the very reason I cite. It may be 10, 50, or 100 years - but it will happen.

crimsonaudio said:

That's ridiculous.

Political advocacy would be telling the church body who they should vote for, how they should feel about certain politics topics etc. Talking about moral issues covered in scripture is not the same thing.

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I completely agree. But, I absolutely see people viewing it this way. For example, the mayor of Houston. And I have friends that feel the same way. Heck, I have a friend who is a lawyer in California who feels that way.

crimsonaudio said:

That's ridiculous.

Political advocacy would be telling the church body who they should vote for, how they should feel about certain politics topics etc. Talking about moral issues covered in scripture is not the same thing.

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i will pipe in and say that i think this is ridiculous and hope the city (if this is in fact true) gets smacked down hard for this. i have personally seen voter "information" cards being handed out in my folks church (church where i grew up) back in the early 2000's. they were technically "information" cards (e.g., so and so believes the same as we do about X) handed out to "remind" you of the candidates positions when you went to the ballot, but it was pretty much a cheat sheet to take to the ballot box that were very similar to the voting guides the machine used to hand out.

my thought is that preachers/imams/rabbis/etc should be able to say pretty much whatever the hell they want from the pulpit. i also think that churches should not be tax exempt.

TideEngineer08 said:

Frankly, everything can be and indeed is politicized. The problem is that those are also religious issues.

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That's my fear is that anything can be viewed as political. If the judicial system ever starts thinking that talking about political issues is grounds for losing tax-exempt status, watch out.

GreatDanish said:

I haven't looked into this at all, but it has all the sounds of being a story taken out of context or "extremized." If true, yikes. I mean, this is scary but I can follow the thought. Since churches are not allowed to "politicize" for tax-exemption purposes, any preaching on abortion, homosexuality, death penalty, etc., could be considered political advocacy.

If it was up to me, I would either (A) eliminate "tax-exempt" status (501 (c)), or (B) eliminate property and income/corporate taxes leaving no need for 501 (c) status. Since we don't do those things, government HAS to keep an eye on churches to ensure they are jumping through the right hoops to remain tax-exempt. And that is not any kind of separation of church and state.

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You mean that a pastor can lose the church's tax exemption by talking about SIN?

Al A Bama said:

You mean that a pastor can lose the church's tax exemption by talking about SIN?

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Obviously, I wasn't very clear. No. But, I think that's what is happening.

we need to get rid of tax exempt status for religions. If they want it for the charitable side let them set up separate charities (as corporations do) and be done with it.

After that let them say what they want and openly advocate for candidates, I'm good with that

crimsonaudio said:

I generally agree, but I think tax-exempt status serves to keep the government off the back of the churches.

IOW, if Houston is doing this now, imagine what they might do if they had the power of taxation.

I'm perhaps a little less quick than most to yield even more to the federal government.

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Funny, I see it the other way. Now the feds can hold the status over their head as a form of control. Take that away and the Gov loses their power

Jon said:

Funny, I see it the other way. Now the feds can hold the status over their head as a form of control. Take that away and the Gov loses their power

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Burn the church down and disband the organization and the Federal government loses its power to control a church as well.
But avoiding Federal control is not why churches exist.

crimsonaudio said:

But then you'll (potentially) have the IRS crawling all over them.

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And we all know the IRS would never engaging in weaponizing the tax code, right?

It is because of cases like this that I distinguish between "liberals" and "leftists." A liberal would not want to examine a sermon for the purposes of shutting the speaker down. He might argue, in his own forum, against what was said in a pulpit, but he would never want to use the force of government to shut up someone who disagrees with him.
A leftist, on the other hand, would be completely comfortable using the police power of the state to shut up someone with opposing views.
I think there are more leftists than liberals in the Democrat party right now.

Even IF you think that the IRS should control the speech of churches and pastors, what does that have to do with the city of Houston? I personally think it's a ridiculous premise and flies in the face of American ideals. The best way to counter speech you don't like is with more speech, not by silencing the opposition.

Unless the preachers are involved in the lawsuit, don't see how they could subpoena sermons.

I haven't seen anything on this today, can anyone provide an updated link? Usually disagree with Jon on religious issues but I think he may be on to something a few posts above.