Religious Freedom – Page 8

IRS Finally Agrees Churches, Pastors Can Engage in Political Speech

Jul 10, 2025Jerry CoxReligious FreedomElections, IRS, Religious Freedom, Religious Liberty

On Monday the IRS filed a motion in federal court acknowledging that churches and ministers are free to address social and political issues from a biblical point of view.

The motion helps bring clarity to the First Amendment freedoms of pastors and churches.

Many people believe state and federal law prevents churches and pastors from addressing “politics,” but churches and ministers actually have always had tremendous leeway to talk about legislation, campaign issues, and even candidates.

Churches and ministers are free to address social and moral issues — even if some people consider those issues “political.”

That means they are free to stand up against abortion, promote biblical marriage, encourage responsible citizenship, support laws that protect children from sex-change procedures, and so forth. Churches can spend an insubstantial amount of money lobbying for or against legislation or ballot issues as well.

Historically, churches have hosted voter registration drives. They have been free to hold candidate forums and educate voters about candidates and elections.

Legal experts generally have agreed the IRS rules — also known as the Johnson Amendment — let ministers support or oppose candidates.

However, on Monday the IRS filed a court motion reinforcing that churches have tremendous leeway when it comes to free speech and religious liberty. The motion says,

When a house of worship in good faith speaks to its congregation, through its customary channels of communication on matters of faith in connection with religious services, concerning electoral politics viewed through the lens of religious faith, it neither “participate[s]” nor “intervene[s]” in a “political campaign,” within the ordinary meaning of those words. . . . Bona fide communications internal to a house of worship, between the house of worship and its congregation, in connection with religious services, do neither of those things, any more than does a family discussion concerning candidates. Thus, communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment as properly interpreted.

The IRS says this is in keeping with its traditional interpretation of federal tax rules governing churches.

Our friends at Liberty Counsel say this means that “if a house of worship endorsed a candidate to its congregants, the agency would view that not as campaigning but as a private matter, like ‘a family discussion concerning candidates.'”

All of this underscores that churches and ministers have tremendous freedom when it comes to talking about morality, social issues, candidates, and political campaigns.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

A.G., School Districts Push Back Against Lawsuit Over Ten Commandments Displays

Jul 8, 2025Jerry CoxReligious FreedomReligious Freedom, Religious Liberty, Ten Commandments

Last week, public school districts and the Arkansas Attorney General’s office asked a federal court to dismiss the lawsuit over a measure placing copies of the Ten Commandments in Arkansas’ public schools and buildings.

Act 573 of 2025 by Sen. Jim Dotson (R — Bentonville) and Rep. Alyssa Brown (R — Heber Springs) requires privately-funded copies of the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools and other public buildings in Arkansas.

The measure received strong support in the Arkansas Legislature earlier this year, and Act 573 is slated to take effect in August.

However, in an effort to block Act 573, lawyers from the ACLU and a group of atheist organizations filed a federal lawsuit against four public school districts:

The Fayetteville School District
The Springdale School District
The Bentonville School District
The Siloam Springs School District

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has intervened in the case as well, and his office is defending Act 573.

Last Wednesday, lawyers for the school districts and the A.G.’s office asked U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks to dismiss the case.

The school districts argue the plaintiffs lack standing to sue the school districts and that the case is premature.

In a separate brief, Attorney General Griffin’s office argued Act 573 is constitutional because “the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized, the Ten Commandments have enormous historical significance ‘in America’s heritage.'” Attorneys for the A.G.’s office also argued the case is premature and should be dismissed.

Over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states are free to honor and recognize documents or symbols that are important to our nation’s history — like the Ten Commandments or the national motto.

The Ten Commandments are one of the earliest examples of the rule of law, and they have had a profound impact in shaping our society and our government.

During her testimony in support of Act 573 last April, Rep. Alyssa Brown noted that the U.S. Supreme Court uses a “longstanding history and tradition test” to decide if it is constitutional to display something like a copy of the Ten Commandments. Rep. Brown said, “The Ten Commandments without a doubt will pass this longstanding history and tradition test.”

We believe our federal courts ultimately will agree and uphold Act 573 as constitutional.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

Free Only to Agree: The Limits of Freedom

Jul 2, 2025John StonestreetFree SpeechFree Speech, LGBT, Religious Freedom, Transgender

Many western countries are putting the right of conscience and speech to the test.

In March, Chris Elston, known as “Billboard Chris,” was detained in Australia for protesting the harm done to children in service of radical gender ideology. He was detained again in Belgium in June, this time along with Lois McLatchie Miller, a senior legal communications officer for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International. The two were simply standing in a public space, offering to talk to anyone interested about the realities of transgender treatment, wearing billboards that stated, “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers” and “Children are never born in the wrong body.” Though they called the cops to ask for protection from harassment, they were told to remove the signs or face arrest. After being detained and strip searched, they were released without charge.

Thought and speech has not always been treated this way. Because the West was deeply influenced by Christian consensus, citizens enjoyed the liberty, to various degrees, to challenge dominant paradigms and ideologies. That liberty is, based on what we’ve seen in Belgium and Britain and other nations, on shaky ground, from both state and institutional pressures. In some places, praying to yourself is considered unruly protest.

Just recently, Lila Rose of LiveAction shared the story of Naomi Best, a therapy student at Santa Clara University, an ostensibly Roman Catholic school in California. As part of the coursework, the university insisted that therapy students view extreme pornography and share their own sexual history. When she asked for the same exemption regularly given to Muslim students, they refused. When she described what happened in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, Best was kicked out of the program. As she pointed out,

If we don’t have a set of therapists with diverse worldviews, and with tolerance for people with diverse worldviews, we will alienate people who need psychological care, and we will cause more harm than good.

Totalitarian states such as East Germany and Soviet Russia guaranteed citizens the freedom of worship but would levy fierce and often violent penalties for spreading religion outside church walls. In those countries, freedom of conscience was only the freedom to believe in one’s heart and head and maybe, one’s house of worship. Worldview diversity was never something allowed to enter the public square.

The First Amendment guaranteed more. In just 45 words, it protects conscience rights that are public. Thus, nonsensical campus chants that “speech is violence” or “silence is violence” are, in law, separated from actual violence. The founders wanted a country in which citizens could think and worship as they believed but could also assemble together and take those beliefs out into the world. Both Belgium and Britain, which is currently debating whether saying things that offend Islam should be illegal, could use something like that, written down into law, about now.

Of course, all freedoms have limits. In the United States, that limit is not one’s own head or heart but real harm done to another. Certainly, that must be constantly clarified and adjudicated, but it’s a far better arrangement than a limit based on how someone else might feel.

The First Amendment is a bulwark against speech police and one of the Founding Fathers’ greatest legacies. It’s a structured freedom that is part of the inheritance of the Christian view of humanity, recognized as both sacred and sinful. It’s a legacy that will not last if people are not willing to express their deeply held beliefs and defend the right to do so.