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."
Past challenges to the law have so far failed, with the Courts holding that while clergy are free to speak out on religious, moral and political issues they cannot use tax-exempt resources to support or oppose candidates for public office, which includes statements from the pulpit by church officials and other indications of campaign intervention.
In May of 2000, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously held that the IRS properly revoked the tax exemption of the Church at Pierce Creek, a congregation near Binghamton, NY, that bought newspaper ads in 1992 opposing presidential candidate Bill Clinton.
Bishop Robinson said that the election of John McCain would lead to the packing of the US Supreme Court with justices that would rule against the recognition of gay marriages. “With Barack Obama, we have someone who is utterly sympathetic to our full and equal rights as citizens.”
He added that while Senator Obama “won’t say he’s for equal marriage rights” Bishop Robinson knew from his “own private conversations with him that he is totally in our court. I believe him, and I trust him, not to throw us under the bus when the election is over.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce
(Source: RI)