Written by Don Byrd
Americans United has filed a complaint (pdf) with the IRS claiming the Missouri Baptist Convention violated the terms of its tax-exempt status when its Public Policy Director Don Hinkle endorsed candidates for office in the Convention’s official publication.
In a column headlined “Allegiance to God, not a political party,” Hinkle wrote, “We want government leaders who are righteous and who will pass righteous laws that serve the common good and bring glory to Jehovah God who established government and is Sovereign. This is why I personally support candidates like U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, a Republican who wants to challenge Democrat Claire McCaskill for her U.S. Senate seat, and Republican Ed Martin, the St. Louis attorney who is running for state attorney general.
Is saying “I personally support” enough distance to keep the MBC from violating the admonition that tax-exempt organizations not endorse?
What’s the difference between a church minister endorsing a candidate from the pulpit (clearly disallowed by IRS regulations) and a Convention leader endorsing a candidate in the editorial page of its major publication? This is an overstep – to use the resources of a tax-exempt religious organization to argue for the election of a particular candidate over another. As a minister must step from behind the pulpit and the resources of the church to make a “personal endorsement”, so too the leader of a religious organization should find another way to indicate his electoral preference.
There are lots of ways to do that without either implicating or exploiting the membership of his tax-exempt organization. Even if every member of the Missouri Baptist Convention agrees and approves, campaign ads should be paid for appropriately, not with tax-exempt funds.
