A group of Christian broadcasters wants to mix religion and politics so badly that they have sued the IRS, hoping a federal judge will permit them to ignore a law they don’t like.
The law at issue here is the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits 501(c)(3) nonprofits (both secular and religious) from engaging in electoral activity. The Freedom From Religion Foundation strongly supports the Johnson Amendment and expects to see the judge in this case quickly dismiss the baseless lawsuit.
Keeping tax-exempt work separate from electoral action has been widely popular, including among churchgoers, and has prevented millions of dollars in dark money from flowing into U.S. elections. Polls routinely reveal that a majority of Americans think religious institutions should stay out of politics.
FFRF sued then-President Trump in 2017 after he signed an executive order that he claimed had “gotten rid of the Johnson Amendment.” Once in court, Trump’s lawyers admitted that he had no authority to overturn a federal statute by fiat.
Unfortunately, the IRS has been woefully lax in enforcing the Johnson Amendment. Many churches that subscribe to Christian nationalist beliefs flagrantly violate the rule, daring the IRS to take action. (FFRF regularly reports such instances to the IRS.) The new lawsuit asks a judge to declare that the Johnson Amendment does not apply to them, even though they claim not to have engaged in any electoral activity and have no reason to think the IRS would take any action against them.
In other words, they have suffered no harm and there is no case here, says FFRF Co-President Dan Barker, who adds: “The hubris of these plaintiffs is incredible. They insist their religious beliefs give them a free pass to ignore laws they don’t like and that the rest of us tax-exempt organizations must follow.”
Tax-exempt status is a privilege. Churches already receive favored treatment over secular nonprofits, but they are not entitled to ignore the other rules and statutes that apply equally to all 501(c)(3) educational nonprofits. The Johnson Amendment helps to ensure that nonprofits are engaged in actual nonprofit work, while simultaneously promoting election integrity.
Churches are uniquely exempted from filing tax returns with the IRS to prove their tax-exempt expenditures, which makes them financial black holes. Overturning the Johnson Amendment would open the floodgates for dark money to be funneled to political campaigns through churches. The Johnson Amendment is a wise and equitable rule that preserves the integrity of both nonprofits and churches, and as such must be protected and enforced.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with over 40,000 members across the country. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
