No communion for Obama supporters

Posted by Tina Righter at 11/14/2008 10:02 AM
Categories: Religion, Politics, Voting, Discrimination, Obama
A catholic priest in Columbia, South Carolina has told his parishioners to skip holy communion if they voted for President-Elect Obama.  Rev. Jay Scott Newman’s reasoning is that Obama supports a woman’s right to choose, which could possibly result in abortion so supporting him “constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil.”

Newman sent a letter to St. Mary’s catholic church parishioners telling them they would be putting their “souls at risk” if they take communion before doing penance for their vote.

During the 2008 campaign, many bishops were much more aggressive than ever before in telling catholic politicians and voters that the issue of abortion should be their most important consideration in setting policy and voting and that their “immortal soul” was on the line.

But is this just a symptom of a bigger problem?  While it is almost impossible to imagine in 2008 that educated adults could be told how to vote by threats to their “immortal souls,” this tactic appears to be effective.  There is a recent escalating surge of religious institutions using their influence in politics.  We just saw the mormon church raise over $20 million to support Proposition 8 in California which removed the rights of same-sex couples to marry.

The law is very clear on this issue.  IRS rules provide tax exempt status to non-profit organizations as long as they adhere to restrictions such as not endorsing specific politicians.  But many are starting to push back against this rule citing freedom of speech.  Sunday September 28th, was the Politics from the Pulpit exercise where churches in 22 states attempted to provoke an IRS investigation that they intended to contest in court.  

These religious institutions have a fundamental misunderstanding of freedom of speech.  They are certainly “free” to preach what they like, they are just not “tax-free”, if they violate these IRS rules.  I personally believe that this tax-exempt status for churches is a significant mistake.  This is a serious loss of revenue.  The idea that non-profits are established for charity and to help those in need, is simply out-dated.  This can easily be seen by the mormons spending over $20 million on advertising to remove civil rights from specific minorities.

 

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