More Complaints From Prop 8 Losers

I usually disagree with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, but I have to give credit where credit’s due. Some folks out in California are grousing about the tax-exempt status of the Mormon Church and its recent opposition to Proposition 8. AU Director Barry Lynn says get a grip, according to the San Francisco Chronicle:

In the wake of Proposition 8’s passage, opponents are railing that churches that supported the ballot measure violated their tax-exempt status.

It’s a common accusation at the now-weekly protests, gaining enough traction that Geoff Kors, a member of the No on 8 executive committee, said lawyers are investigating the issue.

“The Mormon church overstepped its boundaries by being a tax-exempt organization,” said Sharone Negev, 54, of San Francisco, who has gone to protests in San Francisco and the Mormon temple in Oakland. “They clearly are not supposed to be involved in political activities.”

But interviews with experts and activists on the issue say Prop. 8 opponents should look elsewhere for reasons to criticize the measure’s supporters.

“They almost certainly have not violated their tax exemption,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the leading advocacy organization on the issue. “While the tax code has a zero tolerance for endorsements of candidates, the tax code gives wide latitude for churches to engage in discussions of policy matters and moral questions, including when posed as initiatives.”

He’s exactly right, of course, and the way the tax code works now is as it should be on issues of public importance. Churches and their members must be able to try to influence public opinion on matters that are significant to them, or freedom of religion (not to mention speech) is gutted. Not everybody gets that, however:

That doesn’t satisfy Negev, the Prop. 8 protester.

“Why are they even having these tax-exempt laws if churches can exert so much power on issues of civil rights,” said Negev, who attends Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, a reform synagogue that opposed the measure. “Why have these laws in the first place?” [Emphasis added.]

But Lynn, the church-state separation advocate, said that while he was outraged by the Prop. 8 victory, these arguments are a waste of time.

So on the issues that are important to her, Negev apparently believes that any religious organization that opposes her tolerant and diversity-minded views should be stripped of its tax exemption, a perspective that presumably wouldn’t apply to those who are on the side of the angels (which is to say, her side).

There are few events in recent memory that have so marvelously illustrated the authoritarian mindset of some on the left than the triumph of Prop 8. Kudos to Barry Lynn, who though he was against the initiative, nevertheless has the integrity to defend the right to speak out of those on the other side.