Religion and Politics Blur With Sharpton in Pulpit
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN NEW YORK TIMES
The Rev. Melvin Brown was up at the pulpit one Sunday morning last month, in front of his congregation at the Greater New Hope Baptist Church in Washington, exhorting his followers to give money, cash or checks, to the Rev. Al Sharpton. He wanted big donations.
"If the checks are good, and there is no rubber in them, you can make them out to Rev. Al Sharpton," Mr. Brown said with a preacher's flair. "Remember this is a love offering for a preacher. This is not political."
Dapper men with white gloves walked up and down the aisles, passing the brass bowls the church uses for its weekly collections. The final count was about $800, aides to Mr. Sharpton said. All of it went right in Mr. Sharpton's pocket, they said, rather than into his campaign coffers.
The entanglement between the personal and public lives of Mr. Sharpton has often proved controversial, especially in the area of finances. He once claimed in a deposition not to own a television, a radio or even a suit, but to have access to those items because, he said, they were either owned by his businesses or given to him as gifts.
Now he is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, and once again the lack of boundaries between being a preacher, a civil rights advocate, a businessman and a political candidate has raised some ethical and legal questions.
A spokesman for the Federal Election Commission, which monitors campaign fund-raising and spending, said Mr. Sharpton would have been safer if he had sought an advisory opinion before passing the basket at his church appearances. Such opinions are commonly sought by candidates to ensure they do not violate campaign finance rules.
The spokesman, Bob Biersack, said the closest analogy he could find was a 1992 case that involved a candidate for federal office who was being paid for a speaking engagement. In that case, the agency said the candidate would meet their criteria if he did not blur the lines between politics and his work. To avoid that, no one could mention his candidacy at the speaking event.
It was different at Greater New Hope Baptist in Washington.
"Wouldn't you like to have someone like that as president of the United States?" said Mr. Brown, the pastor, after Mr. Sharpton had finished an hour of preaching.
It is often hard to tell where Mr. Sharpton the preacher stops and Mr. Sharpton the candidate begins. When he appeared before the congregation in Washington, his campaign paid for his travel from New York, campaign staff members said. But, they said, he was also there as a preacher.
Mr. Sharpton spoke about politics and his candidacy, as well as about Jesus, faith and religion. He was introduced as the best in the field of candidates for the nomination, but when it came time to solicit donations from the assembled, Mr. Brown said that Mr. Sharpton was visiting as a preacher, not a politician. He referred to the donations as a love offering, like others he had asked the congregation to give visiting preachers.
Legal experts inside and outside government said it was difficult to say whether Mr. Sharpton's activities would pass muster with the F.E.C. They said the circumstances were unusual and touched on an area that the government has generally tried to avoid policing: the nexus between religious organizations and political activities.
But some watchdog groups have said that Mr. Sharpton's activities should be looked at, to ensure that there is a level playing field for all candidates and that churches are not misused.
"The concern that the Interfaith Alliance has is that to use religion in that manner is to manipulate religion for a partisan political purpose," said the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, president of a nonprofit group that promotes the separation of church and state. "That ultimately hurts religion as well as hurts government and the democratic process."
Mr. Sharpton scoffs at the notion that his collecting money in churches might in any way be campaign-related. He says his preaching is a job and should be viewed no differently from any other candidate's job.
On Thursday his supporters gathered at a church in Brooklyn to celebrate his 49th birthday. After addressing the packed house with some of the standard lines of his campaign, he asked those in attendance to drop money in a basket. But first he defended the practice.
"Let me be very clear tonight," he said. "Everybody got his regular job. They do their job and get paid for it. I do my job, it's supposed to only go to the election?
"I am supposed to take care of my family on what? I can't make a living?" He said that the F.E.C. was not confused about what he was doing.
But Mr. Biersack, the agency spokesman, said Mr. Sharpton had never asked the agency for an opinion.
It is commonplace for candidates, or sitting officials, to mix business and politics on trips. The president, for example, may fly at taxpayer expense to give a policy speech in a city, and then hold a fund-raiser there at night. In those cases, however, the candidate or the campaign is expected to pay a percentage of the costs. It is also common for candidates to appear in houses of worship in campaigns and for candidates to continue working and collecting their income.
What is different in Mr. Sharpton's case is that he blends personas and activities at one event.
The Internal Revenue Service says candidates may appear in a house of worship, but only if other candidates have the same access and if the church does not indicate support or opposition to the candidate. Mr. Sharpton was endorsed at the church by Mr. Brown.
Larry Noble, a former general counsel to the Federal Election Commission who is now with the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, said: "If you look at it as a preacher, and these love offerings are a salary, then these are not campaign contributions. On the other hand, when they mix political speech with the more traditional sermon, you get into the problem: is he asking for campaign contributions? It sounds like they are trying to tread a line here by not having him ask for the money. It is somewhat of a unique situation."
Churches, too, must walk a fine line. Religious leaders may personally endorse candidates, but they cannot on behalf of their institution. If they do, they risk losing their tax-exempt status.
In introducing Mr. Sharpton from the pulpit, Mr. Brown said, "Of all the candidates that are running in 2004 for president of the United States of America, none is more prepared, none is more attuned, none are more adept, none is more in touch, none is more in step, none understands the critical issues and needs of the black — not only black: black, white, red — none of them understands the needs and critical problems like the preacher we have before you today."
Asked about his endorsement later, Mr. Brown said: "I did it as an individual. I knohttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/politics/05SHAR.htmlw the law." |
