Politics in churches

(Minneapolis) Star Tribune

A handful of GOP leaders have shown an audacious and appalling tendency to use the tools of government to maintain their hold on political power. ... The latest tactic is a disturbing effort to change the federal tax code and enlist hundreds of Protestant churches into the Bush re-election campaign. ...

... Churches, educational groups and charities enjoy tax-exempt status precisely because they perform work on behalf of the broad public interest -- whether it be feeding the hungry or housing the homeless. Using churches for overt political activity is quite another matter: It could convert a house of worship into a tax shelter for political contributions and, in effect, use one taxpayer's money to support the political candidate of another. ...

Dismantling the wall between worship and politics is a threat both to the idea of secular American government and freedom of religious expression, and leaders of the U.S. House should know better.