AU denounces IRS plan to exempt houses of worship from the Johnson Amendment

Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s President and CEO Rachel Laser issued the following statement in response to the Internal Revenue Service’s reinterpretation of law to exempt houses of worship and religious organizations from the Johnson Amendment, a federal law that prevents 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations from endorsing or opposing partisan political candidates for public office. The proposed settlement was included in a court filing on Monday in the case National Religious Broadcasters v. Long: 

Trump administration has radical reinterpretation of Johnson Amendment

“The Trump administration’s radical reinterpretation of the Johnson Amendment is a brazen attack on church-state separation that threatens our democracy by favoring houses of worship over other nonprofits and inserting them into partisan politics. It’s President Trump and his Christian Nationalist allies’ signature move: exploiting religion to boost their own political power.  

“For more than 70 years, the Johnson Amendment has reflected the will of the American people, the majority of whom want to protect the integrity of our elections and shield our houses of worship from the corrupting influences of partisan politicking. And the IRS’s proposal to exempt houses of worship and religious organizations from the law but still enforce it for secular nonprofits would grant special favor to religion – an unconstitutional violation of church-state separation. We urge the court to reject the administration’s latest gambit to re-write the law through the judicial system.

American public overwhelmingly supports Johnson Amendment

“Weakening this law would undermine houses of worship and nonprofits by transforming them into political action committees, flooding our elections with even more dark money. That’s why polls have repeatedly shown that a broad cross-section of Americans – including faith leaders, evangelical Christians and Republicans – don’t want houses of worship to endorse or oppose political candidates for office. And that’s why, when Trump threatened the law during his first administration, more than 4,600 faith leaders, 5,800 nonprofit organizations and 106 religious and denominational organizations weighed in to strongly oppose weakening or repealing the current law.”