Another Political Assault on Constitution? IRS Messes with United Church of Christ
Updates: Progressive Revelation wrote about it as it happened; Chuck Currie asks: Who Is Behind the Attack on the UCC? Thanks to Mike at Crooks and Liars for linking.
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After the US Attorney scandals, the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, the "beyond thin" prosecution against Georgia Thompson in Wisconsin, Karl Rove's apparent involvement in the prosecution of Alabama Gov. Siegelman, and now this partisan attack on the UCC--which just happens to be Sen. Obama's denomination--isn't it time for a Special Prosecutor to look into the pattern of the prosecution of and general messing with political opponents of President Bush?
Rev. Chuck Currie: Smoking Gun Video Proves IRS Wrong On UCC Claim
As you may have heard in the news, the IRS has just launched an investigation as to whether or not the United Church of Christ should lose its tax exempt status based on a claim made by the IRS that a speech given by Senator Barack Obama at General Synod last summer was in fact a political event benefiting his campaign. As this video proves nothing could be further from the truth:
Click here to watch the video.
Fight back: Support the UCC's legal defense against the IRS
As you no doubt have heard through media reports, the Internal Revenue Service has launched an investigation of the United Church of Christ, based on our invitation to U.S. Sen. Barack Obama - a longtime member of the UCC - to speak at our 50th Anniversary General Synod in Hartford, Connecticut this past June.
The UCC took great care to ensure that Senator Obama's appearance met appropriate legal and moral standards. We are confident that, in the end, the IRS investigation will confirm that no laws were violated.
However, in order to adequately defend ourselves as well as protect the broader principle of the freedom of religious communities to entertain questions of faith and public life, we will need to secure expert legal counsel, and the cost of this defense, we are told, could approach or exceed six figures. This is troubling news. That's why we are turning to you - our members and supporters - to ask for your financial support to help offset these unforeseen legal expenses.
Each year, generous UCC members contribute faithfully to "Our Church's Wider Mission," our shared fund for mission and ministry in our conferences, nationally, and globally. We seek your contributions to ensure that money given for mission will not be needed to pay legal bills, instead of ministry needs. Thus the reason we've created a new UCC Legal Fund to help keep to a minimum the impact of this investigation on OCWM funds.
Will you make a contribution to the UCC Legal Fund today?
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After the US Attorney scandals, the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, the "beyond thin" prosecution against Georgia Thompson in Wisconsin, Karl Rove's apparent involvement in the prosecution of Alabama Gov. Siegelman, and now this partisan attack on the UCC--which just happens to be Sen. Obama's denomination--isn't it time for a Special Prosecutor to look into the pattern of the prosecution of and general messing with political opponents of President Bush?
Rev. Chuck Currie: Smoking Gun Video Proves IRS Wrong On UCC Claim
As you may have heard in the news, the IRS has just launched an investigation as to whether or not the United Church of Christ should lose its tax exempt status based on a claim made by the IRS that a speech given by Senator Barack Obama at General Synod last summer was in fact a political event benefiting his campaign. As this video proves nothing could be further from the truth:
Click here to watch the video.
Fight back: Support the UCC's legal defense against the IRS
As you no doubt have heard through media reports, the Internal Revenue Service has launched an investigation of the United Church of Christ, based on our invitation to U.S. Sen. Barack Obama - a longtime member of the UCC - to speak at our 50th Anniversary General Synod in Hartford, Connecticut this past June.
The UCC took great care to ensure that Senator Obama's appearance met appropriate legal and moral standards. We are confident that, in the end, the IRS investigation will confirm that no laws were violated.
However, in order to adequately defend ourselves as well as protect the broader principle of the freedom of religious communities to entertain questions of faith and public life, we will need to secure expert legal counsel, and the cost of this defense, we are told, could approach or exceed six figures. This is troubling news. That's why we are turning to you - our members and supporters - to ask for your financial support to help offset these unforeseen legal expenses.
Each year, generous UCC members contribute faithfully to "Our Church's Wider Mission," our shared fund for mission and ministry in our conferences, nationally, and globally. We seek your contributions to ensure that money given for mission will not be needed to pay legal bills, instead of ministry needs. Thus the reason we've created a new UCC Legal Fund to help keep to a minimum the impact of this investigation on OCWM funds.
Will you make a contribution to the UCC Legal Fund today?
posted by Faithful Progressive at 9:10 AM
10 Comments:
We should take this as an honor & putting us [UCC] in the same class as the Episcopal Church in CA that has been held up for ransom simply for doing effective social reconstruction efforts. Problem is that, with the cost of defending oneself from illicit claims these days, a six figure deficit arrives quickly [as FP himself should know!]. It's at a point like this that Shakespeare's priorities seem applicable still -- a sound decision for shooting the lawyers first, if we want justice! No doubt it's the IRS lawyers who are more to be faulted than the IRS itself, a case of "Who's on first?" If I were a betting man, I'd bet that some religious rightist, one of a few educated in a formal sense, is doing his own thing & will be testifying to the righteousness of this action in some fundamentalist assembly this weekend. No, I am not a cynic but a realist; nevertheless, some charge d'affairs action must be taken in our behalf. The smear tactic against Obama that list "Church of Christ" rather than "UNITED Church of Christ" is light years off-base, a foot-in-mouth matter for anyone who knows his Religious ABC's past D but an effective smear since most people fall for the same mysinformation. The action by the IRS is not unlike that against Methodism in cutting the corners & dodging the Ecclesiastical Order for Voting in the Synod to place W's Presidential Library on S.M.U.'s campus, notwithstanding that it has been identified as a "think tank" for sanitizing Dubya's regime & an embarrassment to the University AND Methodism forever. I signed a petition & got the checkbook out on that quickly, even if the end-run is successful. The moral? Never trust a fundmentalist in a matter of ETHICS, for they ain't got none: all born again or nuttin'.
Yes, go to the checkbook again so as to defeat this current intrusion & set a high water mark for the next assault. Maybe FP will get himself involved more immediately than money can buy, but we must establish a fund for this defense. This is a moral cause, metaphorical "waterboarding" at least.
Arden
Arden--I'm no election law expert, but I'm probably good for 100 bucks for the UCC--which I was a member of for over a decade and where i was married and my kids Baptized.
Barry Lynn & Welton Gaddy can address this matter top to bottom, front and center, and then some! I am sure you value them & support the causes they represent well. They ought to be called upon in some sense for the defense, if only to show the IRS lawyer(s) up. Yes, I am meeting your hundred bucks, or is it the other way around? My dander gets up quickly with anything like this even if I thought I'd be doing something more constructive by now.
Say, we were in Madison a couple of days in late June but didn't know how to get in touch with you.
Do you think you can post something on this SMU smear by the Bush Presiential Library, a rouge for the "sanitizing think tank" it will be?
These things just never stop coming.
A much better solution would be to not give ANY church preferential treatment by the IRS. Tax them all.
Is Scientology a religion? Does a $10 million parsonage (they exist) deserve tax exempt status?
The founders did not want the government choosing the winners and losers in religion. The only way to get back to the founders intention is to treat churches like any other fiduciary in the eyes of the law.
The point of the federal level tax status isn't just that a church doesn't pay taxes on its revenue but that people who donate to the church can take a deduction on their income taxes. Let me repeat that: the tax status is important so that people who donate to a church can take a deduction on their income taxes.
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