US Bishop backs Obama (Guess who...)

Monday, 15th September 2008
By George Conger

The Bishop of New Hampshire has broken with tradition and endorsed a candidate for political office. In a letter published on “LGBT for Obama,” a website that states it serves as the “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community's online campaign to educate voters on John McCain's anti-gay policies,” Bishop Gene Robinson called on all LGBT voters to “put our differences and disappointments aside, and get behind the one candidate who has our interests at heart.”

On Sept 4 Bishop Robinson wrote that LGBT voters were “faced with the most stark choice in recent memory, with ramifications for our community like no other. If nothing else convinces you to vote for Barack Obama, surely the likelihood of the next president appointing one, two, or possibly even three Supreme Court justices should do it.”

While endorsing specific issues and or programmes is not uncommon, lending the support of the episcopal office to a single candidate is uncommon. It also skirts US tax laws, as clergy or church endorsements are prohibited by a 1954 amendment to the Internal Revenue Code. Nonprofit, tax-exempt entities may not "participate in, or intervene in ... any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office." the rest

Does the IRS know about this activity of VGR? Looks to me like this is a direct violation of the IRS rule for tax exempt organizations that they not "Directly or indirectly to participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office." Will the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire loose its tax exemption over this? Don't count on it. Homosexual activists demand that the rule of law be re-written for them in the area of marriage, so apparently IRS rules don't apply to them either. But just watch how fast a conservative pastor's church will be hit if the pastor endorses John McCain. ....Raymond Dague