Gary Randall Seeking to Increase Power of Theocratic Clergy

Washinton State's Faith and Freedom Network is a political organization made up of conservative Christian churches.  Their goal is pretty standard for such organizations; they want laws based on their interpretation of the Bible, and focus on the issues of ending a woman's right to choose, denying and rolling back any expansion of gay rights, and increasing their ability to force their religious views on the general population by mandating religious practice in government sponsored activities (school prayer, the Ten Commandments displayed in government buildings, abstinence only education, intelligent design etc.). 

Theirs is clearly not a mission of seeking public policy based on the lessons of their personal faith.  They often claim the mantle of Dr. Martin Luther King, but it is hard to imagine King standing with them if he were alive to do so. 

Their leaders claim to be the sole authority on how society should be run because of their status as members of a "priest class" (for lack of a better term), who have an exclusive right to interpret the Bible as the word of God.  That is the very definition of theocracy, and that is the only heritage they should be able to claim (in all of its anti-American glory).

There is one thing that FFN doesn't do however.  They don't endorse or support candidates for public office.  They refrain from that because their members are churches and pastors.  According to FFN's web page , they are a 501c4 organization under the US tax code.  That means that they can engage in political activity, including supporting candidates for office; but if their members were to do that (through financial support of FFN) they would lose their tax exempt status as 501c3 organizations.

Now that doesn't stop Gary Randall from ripping on whichever Democrat happens to be in the spotlight, and it doesn't stop him from doing "everything but" endorsing a GOP candidate.  A great example of this is Randall's strident defense of McCain, all while he relentlessly attacks Obama.  That keeps him from endorsing any candidate, but in the end makes him nothing more than a shill for the GOP. 

Now Randall is seeking to remove this legal barrier to the undo influence of theocratic clergy-persons in US politics.  There is a movement afoot to overturn the prohibition of tax exempt churches from endorsing candidates for office, and it is falsely couched in an argument for free speech:

Pastors To Reclaim First Amendment Rights

There is just one problem with this free speech angle.  It is totally untrue.  No one is prohibiting pastors from endorsing a candidate.  What is being prohibited is maintaining their "special rights" (to steal a term from the mouths of theocrats) to tax exemption.  If they want to get in on the electoral game in a direct way, let them ante-up like everyone else.

The organization leading the charge for preachers to be able to have their tax free cake and eat it to is the Alliance Defense Fund.  The ADF has long been a legal arm of the theocratic Christianist movement (one of their founders is James Dobson), and unsurprisingly has practiced deceptive and misleading public campaigns concerning the cases they undertake. 

Randall quotes (as opposed plagiarizing) the lead council of the ADF, Eric Stanely in order to assign the blame for this alleged abridgment of free speech rights to a traditional enemy:

Stanley says, "The intimidation of churches by leftist groups using the IRS has grown to the point that ADF has no choice but to respond."

I apologize for once again shocking the reader, but I have to inform you that that statement isn't exactly accurate.  In fact the most recent high-profile case involved churches that had more of a "leftist" stance.  The first was a church in California whose pastor in 2004 delivered an anti-war speech in the midst of that presidential election (the IRS closed that investigation).  The second was a church that invited Sen. Barrak Obama to speak at it (which is also closed).  Sure seems like the IRS hasn't attacked conservative churches, and it looks as if churches that are investigated fare pretty well (at least in this very unscientific sample)

So once again we see the theocratic right disingenously manufacturing a crisis in order to advance a very radical agenda.  Once again they attack the seperation of church and state by claiming that they themselves have been attacked.  It is par for the course for Gary Randall, the ADF, and their theocratic kin.

tags: randall  theocracy  adf  elections  speech  lies  obama  mccain  

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