Pastors supporting Huckabee receive anonymous letters (due to tax exempt status)

[usregimechange]

Some Iowa pastors who support Republican Mike Huckabee for president say they have received letters warning them that getting involved in politics could endanger the tax-exempt status of their churches.

Several pastors who have publicly backed Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister who has support from many evangelicals, said they have received the letters, which have no return address. They have arrived in the weeks leading to Thursday's precinct caucuses.

Two letters were sent to the Rev. Brad Sherman, of Solid Rock Christian Church in Coralville. The first arrived a couple weeks ago and warned that he could be prosecuted for his support of Huckabee.

"I just laughed. No one lands in jail for this," Sherman said. "Somebody is trying to intimidate Christians from getting involved."

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080102/NEWS/80102063


I don't agree with the letters but Huckabee has already encouraged voters to "hijack your church's bus" to get bodies to the caucus "who are going to vote for me."

[fudge stripe cookays]

1. I have no problem with them.

If the pastors "get involved", it's not a problem. When they decide to take it to the next level (like in the last election) and begin telling the congregation who they must vote for, THEN it's a problem.

I like the fact that they are getting little reminders about what could happen if they choose to disregard the rules about tax exemption.

I called the IRS on a church near Dallas that one of my friends told me was selecting candidates for the congregants to support. Don't know how it turned out, but I hope they had some agents come crawl up their asses.

[usregimechange]

2. Huckabee is encouraging it.

[fudge stripe cookays]

3. Then we need to be watching like hawks.

We need to try to fight back the nausea, unobtrusively attend services at these places, and take tape recorders with us.

I used to work for the IRS. I hated seeing innocent people getting harrassed, but I also saw a lot of abuse by people who didn't want to pay their taxes, and I have no problem sending these hypocritical fuckers to jail or fining them to the lengths of the law.