Opinion: How politically inclined preachers get around the Johnson Amendment

To the editor: In truth, the push to repeal the Johnson Amendment, which effectively prohibits tax-exempt churches from openly supporting candidates, is yet another grandstanding partisan effort to address a problem that doesn’t exist. It’s not as if a church presently can’t promote a candidate and still remain tax-exempt. (“Don’t listen to the complainers on the religious right. We need the Johnson Amendment,” Opinion, Feb. 2)

Ministers know the pulpit promotion routine: Just tell congregants, “Our church strongly supports proposed Law A. Politician X supports it, too, while Politician Y opposes it. Be sure to vote for whichever of these candidates best reflects our values.”

Thus the minister avoids explicitly endorsing either candidate. But her recommendation is clear. If there’s any congregant who’s too dense to understand which candidate the church prefers, he probably can’t find his polling place anyway.

Dennis Alston, Atwater, Calif.

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To the editor: Exempting religious institutions from taxation forces the government to do something the 1st Amendment prohibits: judge what is or is not a true religion and give special treatment to those that make the cut.

The lengthy battles between the Church of Scientology and the Internal Revenue Service — which declared Scientology a commercial enterprise unqualified for the exemption and then relented — illustrate the problem. Whether Scientology or any other operation is a business or religion should not be the government’s concern, but the IRS has to make that determination with every application for a religious tax exemption.

Regarding the free-speech issue, it’s true that religious leaders can offer political guidance if their employers are willing to give up their privileged tax status. But the money hanging in the balance provides a powerful and inappropriate disincentive.

Eliminating the religious exemption entirely is the most religion-friendly and Constitution-friendly change that could be made to the tax code.

Robert Silberg, Los Angeles

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