Obama snoops infiltrate, target, harass churches
95 year old world renowned evangelist Billy Graham was targeted by the IRS for opposing the Obama administration on the gay marriage issue.
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(Photo by Davis Turner/Getty Images)
But a special report issued today by Fox News indicates that the program went far beyond infiltration and snooping. The IRS was used to harass Christian churches if they were identified as places where large numbers of anti-Obama citizens congregated for worship.
The Obama administration, according to the report, considered any public criticism of administration policies to be political in nature and should therefore impact whether or not these congregations were allowed to gain or keep their tax exempt status.
But pastors have long maintained that there are a myriad of areas where political and moral/spiritual issues overlap, and thus, the pastors feel obligated as the guardians of spiritual truth to speak out concerning these issues.
Abortion, for example, is both a political and a spiritual issue. Most conservative, evangelical Christians believe that Biblical principles are abundantly clear concerning the sanctity of human life. And many pastors thus feel constrained by their calling to condemn abortion as a hideous and barbaric assault on the sacredness of human life.
But liberal politicians such as Barack Obama consider the issue to be purely political since it involves civil law and Supreme Court rulings. And thus, churches should not be allowed to speak out about such an issue.
The overlap between spiritual/moral issues and political issues has far reaching implications for the freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Take Billy Graham, for example. The world renowned evangelist has never had a problem with the IRS over its tax exempt status, that is, until the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association threw its support behind a 2012 ballot initiative in North Carolina that would allow citizens to vote on whether or not to allow gays to marry.
The Obama administration vehemently opposed the ballot initiative and insisted that the courts be allowed to make such decisions.
No sooner had the Graham organization publicized its support for the ballot initiative than the IRS came down on Graham, denying its tax exempt status, and requiring a ton of information as a prerequisite for keeping its tax exempt status.
Although Graham eventually won the day, the IRS had made its point. Any church that dares take a position contrary to the Obama administration had best beware. And most churches are small enough that tangling with the IRS for an extended period could potentially lead to the church shutting its doors for the lack of adequate funds.
Such chilling attempts to curtail citizen rights to free speech and the free practice of religion have become the hallmarks of an administration that is so drunk with power that it knows absolutely no bounds and tolerates very little opposition of any kind to its policies.
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