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On the one hand, I fully believe all private organizations (tax-exempt or no) have the absolute right to as much political speech as they care to emit.
Churches are free to make as much political speech they want the same as any 501(c)(3) organization. Churches have always been able to do that, and many have done it extensively. They can't directly endorse a candidate if they want to retain 501(c)(3) status. If they want to endorse candidates directly then they would give up their tax exempt status. They can lobby also within the restriction of the tax code. http://www.njnonprofits.org/NPsCanLobby.html
Your article is wrong. The law wasn't changed. The bill forbids funding for the IRS to enforce the existing law. The church issue is a slight of hand. The real target is the koch dark money machine which already has unlimited spending as per citizens united and can now use it to directly support candidates as long as they funnel it through some sort of a church group. Since church isn't specifically defined by the IRS, churches don't file tax returns, and churches don't get audited its' a huge win for the libertarian far right's ability to directly effect elections. Not that they weren't doing very well already.
I also can't wait for my current obligation here to end and get out permanently.
Bellingham Bill
2017 Jul 2, 9:41am
Why did you switch to Northern Europe? I think I would prefer Japan myself but that's me.
Life in a big Japanese city doesn't really appeal to me but life in rural Japan is pretty tough, given their ongoing population decline and general deflation.
if i'm going to be living out in the sticks I might as well stay in the Western USA with all the survivalists.
My oldest-known ancestor came from SW Germany, mebbe I'll go back there. Or see what the nordic states have going.
I actually don't believe things will turn out (socio-economically speaking) objectively bad here in my lifetime, but the possibility does exist and isn't getting any lower.
I might like to keep the US as a home base but spend months RVing around in Europe, that's attractive.
Bellingham Bill
2017 Jul 2, 9:45am
They can't directly endorse a candidate if they want to retain 501(c)(3) status.
seems like we're fighting the symptoms here and not the root causes.
On the one hand, I fully believe all private organizations (tax-exempt or no) have the absolute right to as much political speech as they care to emit.
So this law is a good expansion of liberty in that department.
On the other hand, given how much of the church-going public has been bamboozled by crypto-Baptist (SBC) evangelical bullshit*, this may not be all that great for the republic.
Looks like it's back to N Europe for me. Hopefully the increasing runoff from Greenland won't shut down the atlantic conveyor belt in the next several decades . . .
* wrong on slavery, Jim Crow, White Supremacy, segregration, doctrinal abstinence from recreational drugs, Creationism, Vietnam, anti-abortion (after it got fully taken over by the fundamentalists in the 1980s at least), Iraq, homophobia, and intolerance of other faiths, science, and individual freedom aka "secular humanism"in general.