ShareThisThe Rev. Gus Booth wants to "open a dialogue" on political preaching.The Warroad, Minn. preacher will probably get his wish.Booth, a delegate to the Republican National Convention, alerted the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State to a recent sermon he gave at his Warroad Community Church. In it, he encouraged followers to oppose Barack Obama for his stance on abortion rights.Booth advised the organization, which advocates for church-state separation, that he's challenging federal prohibitions on political advocacy from the pulpit.In response, Americans United asked the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) this week to investigate whether the evangelical church with a following of 150 violated its nonprofit, tax-exempt status with Booth's sermon.The IRS prohibits churches "from directly or indirectly participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office" if they want to be exempt from federal income taxes.Booth was picked as a GOP national delegate during the Seventh Congressional District Republican convention in April, about a month before he gave his sermon urging followers not to vote for either Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton. The pastor said he originally supported former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister who had sought the Republican nomination, but now will back the presumptive GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.Booth, 34, defended his actions in an interview this week, saying his constitutional right to free expression trumps tax law, "and the Bible has been around longer than either."But Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said "the grant of a tax exemption is not a right, it's a privilege. It comes with certain restrictions."Carrie Resch, an IRS spokesperson in St. Paul, declined to comment about the complaint against the Warroad church, saying federal law prohibits disclosing information about individual taxpayers."It is my desire and, I dare say, God's desire to use this pulpit to influence you and your family and friends to vote for the most Biblical candidates this November," Booth said, according to a prepared text of the sermon that he recently released. He said the text was virtually identical to his delivered sermon."Both Hillary and Barak (sic) favor the shedding of innocent blood (abortion) and the legalization of the abomination of homosexual marriage," he said. "You have heard the positions of the candidates. There is no middle ground in this election. If you are a Christian, you cannot support a candidate like Barak (sic) Obama or Hillary Clinton for president because he/she stands opposite of every one of the Biblical mandates we have addressed today. I urge you, when you enter that voting booth, to not vote for Barak (sic) Obama or Hillary Clinton or candidates like him/her that support and encourage activities our Lord condemns in the strongest terms."Both Obama and Clinton support abortion rights and have spoken in favor of same-sex civil unions, although not gay marriage.Booth said he hasn't calculated what a loss in the church's tax-exempt status would cost it."If we lost it, then so be it," he said.Lynn said churches don't have to be tax-exempt, and the Warroad church has an option if it wants its minister to advocate for a candidate. "There are some churches that have given up tax exemptions so they don't have to play by the rules," he said.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Minnesota preacher vows to put politics in his pulpit
Paying taxes unites us. It also divides us. People can pay five and even six times more in state and local taxes than other folks in similar circumstances making similar incomes.
Who's got your number?
In one of the fastest-growing forms of identity theft, crooks are stealing tax refunds by swiping personal information and using it to trick the Internal Revenue Service.
