Warroad preacher vows to put politics in his pulpit
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/19810059.html?location_refer=Faith%20+%20Values
[excerpt]
By PAT DOYLE, Star Tribune
Last update: June 11, 2008 - 10:54 PM
The Rev. Gus Booth of Warroad Community Church wants to "open a dialogue"
on political preaching.
He'll probably get his wish.
Booth, a delegate to the Republican National Convention, alerted Americans
United for Separation of Church and State to a recent sermon warning
followers to oppose Barack Obama for his stance on abortion rights. Booth
advised the group that defends church-state separation that he's
challenging federal prohibitions on political advocacy from the pulpit.
On Wednesday, Americans United asked the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to
investigate whether the evangelical church with a following of 150
violated
its nonprofit, tax-exempt status with Booth's sermon.
The IRS forbids churches "from directly or indirectly participating or
intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to,
any candidate for public office."
Booth was picked as a GOP national delegate during the Seventh
Congressional District convention in April, about a month before he gave
his sermon urging followers not to vote for either Obama or Hillary Rodham
Clinton. The pastor said he originally sup****ted former Arkansas Gov. Mike
Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister who had sought the Republican
nomination, but will sup****t the presumptive GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain
of Arizona.
Booth, 34, defended his actions in an interview Wednesday, saying his
constitutional right to free expression trumps tax law, "and the Bible has
been around longer than either."
But Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said "the grant of
a tax exemption is not a right, it's a privilege. It comes with certain
restrictions."
An IRS spokesperson in St. Paul, Carrie Resch, declined to comment
Wednesday about the complaint against the Warroad church, saying federal
law prohibits disclosing information about individual taxpayers.
[end excerpt]
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You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Historical Reality SepChurch&State
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why
"a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v.
Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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