Tax Exemption for churches is only about 45 years old; does "political campaign" need re-definition

[patrice]

due to the evolution of the internet?

http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=285

The Internal Revenue Code prohibits intervention in political campaigns by organizations that are exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3),1 including religious organizations. The restrictions are one of the conditions of maintaining tax-exempt status. Although other restrictions – including state and local laws regulating various political activities as well as federal laws, such as the Federal Election Campaign Act –

also may affect participation by religious organizations in the political process,

the Internal Revenue Code prohibition is the primary focus of this publication.

It has always bothered me that, though churches are prohibited from being actors in candidate campaigns (a prohibition they have overtly abused around here), there is nothing to moderate their use of tax exempt resources to create and facilitate the actions of certain kinds of "like-minded" groups, as long as it can be claimed that such groups are not supporting any given candidate's campaign.

It seems that the reference to the Federal Election Campaign Act and organizations participating in the political process is still too broad to get at the kinds of activities I'm thinking about here, so I despair at how troubling it is that my tax dollars support various types of group-think.

The google search that I did to look at this question (just superficially really) was interesting in how many and how dominant links to discussions about how church tax exempt status inhibits their free-speech (by prohibiting participation in candidate campaigns). It appears to me that ground-work has been laid, by some at least, to oppose a challenge to their tax exemptions by claiming the opposite of the challenging argument, Tax Exemption supports Political Speech, with "Tax Exemption is an impediment to Political Speech because it prevents involvement in political campaigns", which ought to work just fine for them, because that IS the truth.

As long as we continue to look at exemption in terms of a purpose limited to prohibiting participation in candidate campaigns (and ignore OTHER essentially political activities funded by churches), isn't this debate going to be just a Win:Win for churches?