Ohio Churches' Political Activities Challenged

Marcus Owens, left, a lawyer for the clergy members, suspects the churches are receiving IRS favoritism, which tax agency officials deny. The Rev. Eric Williams says the churches should "stop acting like electioneering organizations." (Photos By Paul Vernon -- Associated Press)

Among the project's objectives is to recruit "Patriot Pastors" to become politically active in their counties and their congressional districts, according to the organization's Web site. Each should be ready to register voters "able to shine a light for Godly candidates in the 2006 election cycle."

The January complaint seeking an IRS investigation -- signed by 31 Christian and Jewish clergy members -- charged that the churches and their affiliates improperly allowed Republican organizations to use their facilities and illegally promoted the candidacy of Blackwell, who won considerable backing from Ohio conservatives while leading a 2004 effort to ban same-sex marriage.

An April complaint, signed by 56 clergy members, said that Blackwell appeared more than two dozen times at meetings and rallies held by the churches, their leaders or affiliates. Other candidates were not invited or did not attend, according to the complaint.

In addition, the document said that Blackwell, in his fourth year as secretary of state, took three flights to events opposing same-sex marriage in 2004 aboard World Harvest Church's private plane. He reimbursed the church $1,000. The complaint also said Blackwell would be featured in "Ohio for Jesus" radio advertisements. World Harvest officials later confirmed that Blackwell once flew aboard the World Harvest plane to Texas, which the statement described as "not exactly a popular campaign stop for Ohio candidates." A church statement branded the complaint the work of "left-leaning clergy," a characterization the clergy members dispute.

Meanwhile, in a letter to the Columbus Dispatch, a World Harvest Church member called the criticism a "smear tactic" and dismissed media attention as "a desperate attempt to destroy men of God."

Representatives of the churches declined to comment. Executives and spokesmen have said in the past that World Harvest and Fairfield Christian and their partners are careful to honor federal law.

Blackwell, who also declined to be interviewed for this article, told an audience of conservative religious leaders: "You tell those 31 bullies that you aren't about to be whupped." He added that "political and social and cultural forces are trying to run God out of the public square."

IRS rules specify that charities that are granted a tax exemption because they serve the public may not "participate in or intervene in . . . any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."

Enforcement does not infringe on First Amendment rights to free speech, the Supreme Court has ruled, because the issue is not whether an organization's members can speak freely, but whether the government will subsidize its activities through a tax exemption.

"That's what our ancestors were trying to prevent, having too close a relationship between a government or a government official and a particular religious group so that the government policy and the activities of a particular religious group become intermingled," said Rabbi Harold J. Berman, who signed the complaints.

Describing himself as a centrist, he said his worries also apply to churches that endorse Democratic candidates and invite them into the pulpit. He said: "I think that's problematic, as well. That's something people shouldn't do."

The Columbus complainants point to IRS investigations of a liberal California church and the NAACP in asking whether the tax agency is being sufficiently aggressive in the Ohio case. Lerner, the IRS official, said she could not confirm or deny that the agency has begun an Ohio investigation.

In Pasadena, Calif., the IRS is examining the tax-exempt status of All Saints Church because its former pastor delivered a sermon that criticized Bush on the Iraq war and Republican conservatives on social policy two days before the 2004 election.

The NAACP recently said it would challenge in court an IRS threat to revoke its tax-exempt status. The case centers on a 2004 speech critical of Bush administration policies by Chairman Julian Bond. The group's president, Bruce S. Gordon, said he was concerned that the IRS audit "was motivated by politics."