Making political giving tax deductible is wrong
There are a host of good reasons to go to church. Having the minister tell you how you should vote isn’t one of them.
Who among us didn’t have our fill of political commercials during any week last fall? Did any of us look forward to the weekend, hoping to hear a political spiel rather than a sermon at church?
Apparently President Donald J. Trump thinks that is what America’s houses of worship need in these troubling times is less religion and more politics. During his address at the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 2, Trump vowed to “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment. Unfortunately, the implications of that vow were overshadowed in press coverage by his frivolous call for the assemblage to pray for better TV ratings for Arnold Schwarzenegger, who replaced Trump on the “Celebrity Apprentice” reality show.
Whether prayer can help Arnold remains to be seen, but it’s important to take a serious look at what the Johnson Amendment is and how its destruction would tear the very fabric of American democracy.
The 1954 amendment to the nation’s tax code was introduced by then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, passed unanimously and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
It restricts – but does not prohibit – political activities by 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charities. Those include churches, synagogues and mosques, but also educational, scientific and literary charities, as well as those that test for public safety, foster amateur sports competition, or prevent cruelty to children or animals. These are the charities that Americans volunteer for and rely on every day. They are valued for what they add to our lives, not the partisan political leanings of their leaders.
Contrary to what the president implies, the law does not muzzle pastors. They can (and do) preach on social and political issues. Churches hold voter-registration drives and publish “issue guides.”
Partisan political activities and the endorsement of specific candidates are prohibited. That is not too high a price to pay for the tax privileges that churches and charities enjoy. Tax exemptions are not inconsequential. Those charities are not taxed on their income and, more significantly, the people who donate to those charities are allowed to deduct those donations on their income tax returns.
If President Trump were to get his wish for destruction of the Johnson Amendment, his action would benefit those religious institutions that want to become more blatantly politically active – not that every church is interested in doing that. But gutting the Johnson Amendment would provide a tax-deductible avenue for people to make unlimited indirect donations to political movements and candidates.
And those billions of dollars in tax deductions would eventually have to be made up by other taxpayers, who would be forced to subsidize political campaigns with which they disagree. Under the guise of honoring a claim by some tax-exempt churches and charities to a First Amendment right to pursue partisan politics, repeal of the Johnson Amendment would trample on the First Amendment rights of nonpartisan taxpayers.
CHURCH, STATE SEPARATION
More ominously, if Trump and congressional Republicans succeed in destroying the Johnson Amendment, they would do further damage to the separation of church and state that has kept this republic from devolving into a theocracy.
The Johnson Amendment was passed six years before the nation elected its first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy. Those who were around, or those who have read their history, know that Kennedy felt compelled to assure people that he was not the Catholic candidate for president, but “the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens to be a Catholic.”
Speaking on Sept. 12, 1960, to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, Kennedy said: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.”
We wonder whether Kennedy could say today what he said then: “I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the First Amendment’s guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so.”
Those checks and balances will work only so long as politicians believe in rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s. The Johnson Amendment is a democratic reflection of that Scripture, and it deserves respect, not a threat to destroy it.