Anti-Clinton Church Wins Tax Victory

A New York church stripped of its tax-exempt status for declaring in 1992 that it was a “sin” to vote for Bill Clinton has won a key court victory in its fight with the Internal Revenue Service.

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman ruled that the Church at Pierce Creek in Vestal had established sufficient evidence that the IRS intentionally discriminated against the church for its legal claim to proceed.

Friedman--a Clinton appointee--said in his ruling that the IRS had treated Church at Pierce Creek “in a significantly different fashion from the way it has treated other churches and / or religious organizations that have engaged in overt political campaign activity.”

Just days before the 1992 presidential election, the church, its pastor, the Rev. Dan Little, and Branch Ministries Inc. jointly published full-page ads in USA Today and the Washington Times saying that to vote for Clinton was a sin because as Arkansas governor Clinton supported homosexuality, abortion and the distribution of condoms to public school students.