By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--August 2, 2014
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Government's assault on religious liberty has hit a new low as the IRS settles with atheists by promising to monitor sermons for mentions of the right to life and traditional marriage. A lawsuit filed by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) asserted that the Internal Revenue Service ignored complaints about churches' violating their tax-exempt status by routinely promoting political issues, legislation and candidates from the pulpit. The FFRF has temporarily withdrawn its suit in return for the IRS's agreement to monitor sermons and homilies for proscribed speech that the foundation believes includes things like condemnation of gay marriage and criticism of ObamaCare for its contraceptive mandate. The irony of this agreement is that it's being enforced by the same Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division of the IRS that was once headed by Lois "Fifth Amendment" Lerner and that openly targeted Tea Party and other conservative groups.I'm not exactly sure how the IRS would "monitor sermons and homilies," unless they seriously intend to send IRS agents to attend church services as spies. And if they did that, I'm not sure how you would stop them. Most churches welcome everyone, and these days it's easy peasy to put your cell phone on sound record without even having to take it out of your pocket. I guess we'd better tell the greeters at our church to be on the lookout for bureaucratic-looking weasel types who don't know the worship songs and don't speak in tongues. My pastor might preach something subversive, like, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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