JUSTICE DEPARTMENT INVOLVED in IRS probe of liberal Pasadena Episcopal church for antiwar sermon

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Pasadena church wants apology from IRS
All Saints' rector also demands that the agency clarify its findings after closing its probe into an antiwar sermon in 2004.
By Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 23, 2007

The rector of a liberal Pasadena church today demanded an apology and a clarification from the Internal Revenue Service after being notified that the agency had closed a lengthy investigation of the church over a 2004 antiwar sermon -- but also found that the same sermon constituted illegal intervention in a political campaign.

The Rev. J. Edwin Bacon Jr., rector of All Saints Episcopal Church, told congregants during morning services today that he and other officials were relieved that the church no longer faced the imminent loss of its tax-exempt status, but were bewildered by the IRS' seemingly contradictory conclusions about the case. All Saints has "no more guidance about the IRS rules now than when we started this process over two long years ago," Bacon said. He said the lack of clarity from the IRS in its recent letter to the church would have a continuing "chilling effect" on the freedom of clerics from all faiths to preach about core moral values and such issues as war and poverty....

All Saints, one of Southern California's largest and most liberal congregations, came under IRS scrutiny after a sermon two days before the 2004 presidential election by a guest speaker, the Rev. George F. Regas. In the sermon, Regas, the church's former rector, depicted Jesus in a mock political debate with then-presidential candidates George W. Bush and John F. Kerry. Regas did not instruct parishioners whom to support in the presidential race, but his suggestion that Jesus would have told Bush that his preemptive war strategy in Iraq "has led to disaster" prompted a letter from the IRS in June 2005 stating that the church's tax-exempt status was in question....

***

In addition to its requests for clarification and an apology, All Saints has asked a top Treasury Department official -- its inspector general for tax administration -- to investigate what the church described as a series of procedural and substantive errors in the case, including allegedly inappropriate conversations about it between IRS and Justice Department officials. Those conversations, documented in e-mails obtained by the church through Freedom of Information Act requests, appear to show that Justice Department officials were involved in the All Saints case before the IRS made any formal referral of it for possible prosecution, an attorney for the church said. And they raise concerns that the IRS' investigation may have been politically motivated.

"In view of the fact that recent congressional inquiries have revealed extensive politicization of (the Department of Justice), my client is very concerned that the close coordination undertaken by the IRS allowed partisan political concerns to direct the course of the All Saints examination," attorney Marcus S. Owens wrote in a Sept. 21 letter requesting an investigation.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-allsaints24sep24,0,6570946.story?coll=la-home-center

[annabanana]

1. Why do I believe that an honest investigation of this investigation

will turn up some of the "usual suspects" in the Justice Department?

[aquart]

5. Under Bush, "honest investigation" became an oxymoron.

[kestrel91316]

2. No great shock here:

"......they raise concerns that the IRS' investigation may have been politically motivated......."

I have believed from the moment I heard about this case that it was 100% politically motivated, and probably instigated at the highest levels of our government.

[cali]

3. Is there any slimy investigation in this country that doesn't have

dirty DOJ fingerprints on it?

[panader0]

4. My suggestion is that Jesus would have said

that all wars are wrong, not just certain preemtive ones. I know very few Christians who would actually turn the other cheek, much less to be willing to die for the priciple of non-violence.

[Toots]

6. If preaching morality is political and IMO it has become so, it is because of the

Legislating on morality that is done usually by Republicans. It will be very interesting to hear the replies to this request..I would think every Fundamentalist Church does little else but Preach morality. People have different sets of moral values and why should one set be considered political and not the other? This could very well establish some sort of precedent..

[Trillo]

7. If they're going after the church for this, shouldn't 501c3's

like PNAC's tax-exempt status also be investigated?

According to the IRS's web documentation, a 501c3 is not allowed to "attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities".

[lastliberalintexas]

8. I doubt PNAC is a 501c3, though I could certainly be wrong

I would like to see them go after the churches who preach nothing but hatred and intolerance of gays, blather incessantly about abortion or who tell stories from the pulpit about how The One True Christian God brought a savage sandstorm to defeat The Islamists in Iraq. But I know that won't happen.

[Trillo]

9. It's what PNAC claims on its "about" page.

I suppose it's possible that PNAC is publicly lying, I haven't seen their charter.

I understand your frustration with Christian churches in general, fundamentalist in particular, but I was attempting to widen out the conversation to a wider point of hypocrisy and equal treatment under the law.

edit: removed stupid apostrophe.

[eridani]

14. They can preach about issues all they want

If we want to talk against the war in our churches, the flip side is that they have the right to promote bigotry in their churches. What neither ought to be allowed to do is to ENDORSE CANDIDATES.

[H2O Man]

10. Nixon revisited. n/t

[DeepModem Mom]

11. Yep, or worse. nt

[texanshatingbush]

12. The same yardstick is not used to measure all......

A few years ago, the local 1st Baptist Church in our very red town petitioned the election commission to include Sunday in our nine days of early voting, then used that Sunday for the pastor to invite down to the front of the auditorium the candidates the congregation should vote for, then after the "sermon" loaded the congregation onto busses and drove them to the polls to cast their early votes.

That pastor was subsequently "run off" because he had spent the church into deep debt. He now is on the staff of Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs.

Obviously, the same yardstick is not used to measure all.

[DeepModem Mom]

13. THAT, of course, is the most important point of this story. Politicking in fundamentalist...

conservative churches is blatant, rampant, and unaddressed.