Checkpoint: Church And State Require Proper Separation
Teresa Kopec
Religious freedom has always held a significant symbolic weight as one of the fundamental principles of American ideology. The story of “free exercise” in America is one of the pilgrim refugees evading religious oppression at the hands of the British monarchy. The First Amendment protected the crucial need for religious free exercise, stating that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Today, however, these clauses also prevent the Internal Revenue Service from levying taxes against such religious institutions. The right to free religious expression is not encumbered by fair taxation and renders unethical the amount of wealth hoarded from faith donations as a result of exemption. Thus, religious institutions which involve themselves in the political process and engage in games of partisan political influence should be taxed for participating in political development.
Separation of Church and State
The current precedents upholding the separation of church and state are insufficient and ineffective. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison both argued that freedom of conscience would be infringed upon by obligations to financially bolster state religious institutions with personal tax revenue. The Supreme Court has developed three separate tests to determine the constitutionality of laws that may concern an establishment of religion. The Lemon test was established during Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), dictating that a law must have “a secular legislative purpose,” and is prohibited from developing “an excessive government entanglement with religion.” The Endorsement test, developed during Lynch v. Donnelly (1984), tested whether a law constitutes an institutional endorsement of religion, and the Coercion test, emerging from County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union (1989), tested whether a law would involve citizens in religious participation against their will.
Everson v. Board of Education (1947) saw Justice Hugo Black conclude the majority statement by claiming “the First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.” However, this sentiment fails to consider that not all breaches occur quickly but with the slow passage of time. The presence of three different subjective judicial interpretations for determining the constitutionality of a piece of legislation directly undermines Black’s sentiment, as some will eventually pass the tests and therefore qualify as Constitutional. We must therefore infer that the Establishment Clause only extends as far as the establishment of a state-sponsored religion. The notion that taxing a religious institution would violate its First Amendment right to free exercise is a fallacy.
501(c)(3) Designation
Since the Colonial era, our tax code has accommodated religious institutions, but today, the IRS utilizes 501(c)(3) designation under Section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code to categorize charitable organizations and implement exemptions. While these organizations are “automatically considered tax-exempt and are not required to apply for and obtain recognition of exempt status,” 501(c)(3) organizations are required to pay taxes on income from “unrelated business.” Section 501 requires that qualifying organizations be “not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare.” This phrasing is markedly different from that found in the Constitution- requiring the government to “promote the general welfare.” The general welfare includes social and economic welfare; the IRS, on the other hand, requires that charitable organizations only promote the social welfare of American society at large.
The IRS requires that such organizations operate for “exempt purposes”: including charity, religious expression, scientific and literacy education, and others promoting social welfare causes. None of the organizational earnings “may inure to any private shareholder or individual” and “must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests.” 501(c)(3) organizations must also refrain from partaking in the political process and legislative lobbying, though it is conceded that “certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances.” Such activities include non-partisan voter education and electoral participation activities such as “voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives.” Unfortunately, the line between partisan, bipartisan, and non-partisan is easily blurred, and we see many religious institutions taking a wide berth with the IRS requirements placed upon them.
Religion For Profit
Kenneth Copeland is an American televangelist and founder of the Believer’s Voice of Victory network. Copeland is the owner of a Gulfstream jet purchased from Tyler Perry and owns others in addition. He is known for his claim that he would be unable to preach without them, “you can’t manage that today, in this dope-filled world, get in a long tube with a bunch of demons.” Another example, Creflo Dollar, is a preacher who drives a Rolls Royce Phantom and, like Copeland, begged that his congregation donate toward a new Gulfstream jet. To restate, the IRS notably requires that religious institutions are “not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare.” When revenue exceeds expenses, one has profit, and Kenneth Copeland has an estimated net worth of $300 million and Dollar’s is estimated at $27 million. It is not to say that all religious institutions should be taxed, but Copeland and Dollar are examples of the ways in which non-profit tax exemption can become unethical and serve only to further benefit the wealthy.
Religious Political Involvement
Despite IRS requirements that religious organizations remain divorced from electoral and legislative politics, we see a profound interaction between religion and the political process. The Supreme Court ruled that teachers at religious institutions are not granted protection by work-related civil rights. In addition, different religious groups have each taken and maintained institutional stances on policy topics such as abortion, while pastors have appeared on Fox News referring to the Democratic Party as a “godless party.” Further, debate has broken out among the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops over the denial of communion to politicians advocating secular positions, including both abortion rights and same-sex marriage. We clearly see that the “wall of separation” between government and religion is already breached. The Establishment Clause therefore cannot refer to a total absence of political interjection; the Court has shown that the church and the state are not truly separated.
The First Amendment was constructed to protect free exercise, but modern religious intervention in politics amounts to infringement of freedom from the influence of religion. The number of secular American voters trends upward, meaning that an increasing percentage of the citizenry derives its moral standards from non-religious sources. For conservative politicians to cite religious ideology as legislative reasoning, we see the inverse of the state religion feared by the Founding Fathers. Conservative calls for an absence of legislation are tantamount to simple deregulation rather than protection of political ethics. Consistent attempts to influence legislation undermine the sentiment that total exclusion between private religious life and public life can be upheld in perpetuity by the subjective rulings of the court.
Ethics of Religious Tax Exemption
Considering that the wall of separation is breached by the existence of 501(c)(3) designation itself, the First Amendment-based concern that IRS tax payments would violate the Establishment Clause is invalidated. Some would argue that taxation would inhibit the free exercise of such religious institutions; however, when these institutions choose to intercede in the political system, they are violating the responsibilities already placed upon them as 501(c)(3)-designated organizations. Overstepping the bounds of the IRS designation granting tax exemption should, at the very least, open those institutions to taxation rather than spoiling tax exemption for potentially apolitical up-and-coming religious faiths. In today’s political landscape, the “Religious Right” is a potent conservative political force holding weighty influence among Republican voters, and religious organizations donated a combined $4 million in lobbying dollars in 2020. This creates a one-way dynamic granting religious interests freedom to manipulate the polity while not contributing to the economy which sustains it.
When nearly half of the American populace identifies with some kind of religious ideology, political interference does not need to be overt to drastically influence the opinions of its constituents. The Catholic Bishops’ calls to deny Joe Biden the eucharist directly amounts to a judgment of faith and an unethical moral condemnation of the President. Further, by denying Communion to politicians that “don't adhere to Catholic teaching,” the church is directly manipulating the ideas of believers regarding political matters. Each Bishop and clergyperson has an individual right to support Joe Biden or to reject his policy, but the IRS prohibits any charitable organization from acting as an “action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.” By attempting to influence the faithful masses through religious institutional judgment, however, churches are still violating the Internal Revenue Code and thus open themselves to taxation.
Conclusion
Religion began as and is still believed by many to be the foundation for morality and ethics itself. Those who lead the faithful are free to express their faith as they see fit, but the IRS requires that such institutions not overstep the bounds of their designation. With religion being such a potent ideological force, we need to truly sever any influence it has over political ideas. This will not be achieved by creating a theoretical “wall of separation” between politics and religion. Free exercise is not a controversial aspect of American political philosophy today- only the degree to which religion is involved in political life. Rather than preventing the law from regarding religion, this will only be solved by properly taxing religious institutions that fail to bind themselves to the “social welfare” and cross over into government responsibilities of promoting the “general welfare.” Taxation will not stymie the free expression of religious beliefs; it will instead ensure religious institutions can do nothing but freely express their religious beliefs, and remain truly separated from the state.