What would Jesus do ... about the IRS?
Government accuses All Saints Church of violating tax-exempt status by ‘opposing’ Bush in 2004
By Kevin Uhrich and Joe Piasecki
For as long as there has been a United States of America there have been churches and members of the clergy that have stood up to and sometimes against the government.
This has been true of a number of area churches in recent years, particularly All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, which has been at the forefront of a rapidly growing national movement against the war in Iraq.
At All Saints, opposition to the war, not to mention many of the Bush administration’s wartime domestic policies, has provided a flood of material for newspaper stories about anti-war protests around Southern California, many of those demonstrations co-organized by members of the politically influential church and the Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, which was co-founded by All Saints’ outspoken Rector Emeritus George Regas.
For nearly 30 years, Regas has railed publicly and from the pulpit at All Saints against not only the Iraq War but also the first Gulf War and the Vietnam War, all the while championing such causes
as abortion rights, same-sex marriages and increased services for the poor and sick — all without ever eliciting a response from those being chastised, namely the government. Until now.
In a June 9 letter read at Sunday services by Rector Ed Bacon, US Internal Revenue Service officials claim Regas violated the church’s near sacrosanct tax-exempt status by allegedly encouraging congregants to vote against President Bush in the 2004 Presidential Election, a claim that Regas and church officials deny and say stretches the government’s rule against tax-exempt churches endorsing candidates.
“I feel good about what I did and the church feels good about it,” Regas said of his Oct. 31, 2004, sermon, titled “If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush.”
“We just have to see it through,” Regas continued, adding the church has hired a Washington, DC, law firm to represent it against the IRS.
In its letter, the IRS said concerns are based on news coverage that described the sermon as “a searing indictment of the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq.”
Regas, who maintains he did nothing wrong, said the federal agency has offered to settle the matter if the church acknowledges its alleged mistake, apologizes for it and promises it “would not continue that kind of ministry.”
The church, which according to staff has not accepted any government funding under Bush’s faith-based initiative program, has rejected that offer.
“To think the IRS can say the pulpit isn’t free to challenge the policies of the government is a stark diminishment of the church’s role in society, so there is a lot at stake in this,” Regas told the Weekly.
‘Grave moment’
Also an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, Bacon stopped short of accusing the IRS of targeting the church for its liberal leanings.
“At this point, I don’t feel targeted, though that may be the case. I think that if we are, this bodes very perilously for the nation; that the IRS would go after a religious institution for merely promoting its own core moral values when they conflict with those of the administration. If we are being targeted, it is a grave moment for our country,” said Bacon, who along with Regas was arrested in 2003 for civil disobedience while protesting the start of the Iraq War.
In 1987, church vestry issued a declaration that All Saints is “a peace and justice church,” one that “will continue to work against unjust and unnecessary military action.”
Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard is among a number of powerful people — celebrities, lawyers, politicians, law enforcement officials and newspaper executives — who have attended services at All Saints Church, located directly across the street from Pasadena City Hall and sometimes referred to as “City Hall East.”
For its progressive stance on lifestyle issues such as gay marriage, All Saints has also been called “The Church of What’s Happening Now” and “The Left Wing of the West Wing.”
A Pasadena couple who attend the church made headlines last month by filing a federal lawsuit against the city for the right to hang an anti-war sign on their home, an action that the city argued was illegal under zoning code. City officials decided to change zoning law rather than go to court.
The church has hosted a number of world religious leaders, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who preached services the morning Bacon announced the IRS investigation.
“It seemed to me that George’s position, which was strong and clear, and questioning the war, was consistent with his pattern of courageous leadership on moral issues,” said Bogaard. “I don’t think he’s changed, and the question is whether the enforcement is different today than it has been in the past. The pattern of enforcing these rules will come to the fore and show there was nothing inappropriate for tax-exempt organizations.”
While IRS officials refused comment, agency documents state that more than 60 tax-exempt organizations, many of them churches, have been investigated by the IRS for alleged candidate endorsements.
In the run-up to the 2004 election, the IRS established a special committee of bureaucrats to investigate claims, which can often be initiated by citizen complaints, that nonprofits broke rules regarding political activity.
A February report by the US Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s Office found that while the IRS could have done a better job of processing cases faster, investigators have apparently operated independent of political leanings or influence. The audit, which studied investigations opened during late 2004, was triggered by “several media reports of allegations that [the IRS] was examining this type of activity just before the 2004 election for politically motivated reasons,” but, according to the report, found no evidence of such impropriety.
If enforcement of tax rules for churches remains no different from the recent past, it’s possible — but not at all certain — that the IRS would come down hard on All Saints.
Some 25 years ago, an abortion rights group sued the IRS to force an investigation into the Catholic Church for its position on the issue, but that case was dismissed on procedural grounds.
In 1991, the IRS found televangelist Jimmy Swaggart in violation for having endorsed Pat Robertson for president. Swaggart was forced only to sign a written apology, and the tax status of his ministry was unaffected.
In 1993, the IRS levied a $50,000 fine against Robertson for illegally funneling church money to a political action committee for conservative candidates and retroactively removed tax-exempt status for two years.
Then, in 1995, the IRS revoked tax status for a church that ran political ads against the candidacy of President Bill Clinton. |
