A Pathetic American Moment

05/11/2005

Paul Munnis

It is with great pleasure that we heard a news story to the effect that the Southern Baptist minister who evicted Democrats from his Church has been fired. He and his followers are no longer members of the congregation.

Some say that it is wrong that he is gone.

Others say that it is right.

Those saying it is wrong most often cite freedom of speech as the basis of their opinion. Those saying it is wrong cite separation of church and state as the basis for their position.

In the end though it was neither of those.

It was the church tax exemption under IRS rules that says that churches must not be used as a place to influence voters to elect particular politicians if they wish to maintain their tax-exempt status.

If the Southern Baptist church were to lose its tax-exempt position then they would subject billions of dollars of tax-free holdings to come onto local tax roles. This would be a joy for the communities that host them and a disaster for their organization. The loss, because one man felt a need to shoot this mouth off in a bigoted and prejudiced manner, was simply unbearable.

In our opinion it is lamentable when a church leader uses the pulpit to politicize a candidate or a Party. It is even more wrong when bigotry and prejudice are the underlying cause. We would not want to belong to a church that supposedly exists in order to evangelize God’s word to instead evangelize the words of a political party or a political candidate.

The words that are very precious to us in many of our laws are ones that include the phrase…”regardless of race, creed, or color.”

These words should be important to all Americans but are apparently not welcomed in parts of the South.