Freedom Writer - May 1995 [ref001] New York church runs afoul of IRS In what scholars beli

Freedom Writer - May 1995

[ref001]

New York church runs afoul of IRS

In what scholars believe to be the first case of the Internal Revenue
Service revoking a church's tax-exempt status for partisan politicking, 
the IRS cracked down on a Binghamton, New York church after the church 
ran blatantly political advertisements in two national newspapers. 
The full-page ads urged Christians to vote against Bill Clinton for 
president. 

The Church at Pierce Creek lost its tax-exempt status on January 19 
of this year after the IRS conducted an investigation at the urging 
of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. Barry 
Lynn, executive director of Americans United, noted that the ads went 
far beyond addressing religious and moral issues. Pat Robertson's 
American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has filed suit against 
the IRS in an attempt to rescind the tax agency's ban on church politicking.

"Pat Robertson and his lawyers clearly want to turn churches into 
gears in a political machine," said Lynn. "Robertson has spent the 
last decade luring churches into partisan politics, and this IRS action 
jeopardizes that misguided project."

Institute for First Amendment Studies general counsel Barbara Simon 
said that the ACLJ action is another attempt to erode the First Amendment's 
provision for a wall of separation between church and state. "If churches 
wish to engage in partisan politics," she said, "they should play 
by the rules."

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