ADF Assures Pastors of Their
Constitutional Rights
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. —
The Alliance Defense Fund issued a joint educational letter Monday
with Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, Concerned
Women for America, and the James Madison Center for Free Speech to
pastors across the country, equipping them with legal information on
how they can speak out on moral issues during the 2008 elections and
not jeopardize their churches’ tax-exempt status.
“Churches and pastors
have First Amendment rights like everybody else,” said ADF Senior
Counsel Gary McCaleb. “Threatening legal action against churches to
stifle them is a tactic of true intolerance, and our mission with
this letter is to ensure that illegitimate tactics of fear,
intimidation, and disinformation continue to fail.”
The joint letter,
titled “Constitutional Protections for Pastors: Your Freedom to
Speak Biblical Truth on the Moral Issues of the Day” is a
response to misleading information sent to churches by organizations
such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State to
silence the voices of churches and pastors on critical social
issues. In addition, numerous churches have had their tax-exempt
status threatened or have been subjected to IRS investigations based
on allegations from such private activist groups.
The letter assures
pastors and churches that they have constitutional rights to express
their views on a broad array of social issues as well as allow
parishioners to sign petitions in support of moral positions.
A copy of the joint
letter sent by ADF, Focus on the Family, the Family Research
Council, Concerned Women for America, and the James Madison Center
for Free Speech can be read
here.
“The remote
possibility of the loss of tax-exempt status is used by those
hostile to people of faith to chill their right to free speech and
to silence them in their own churches,” said McCaleb. “This letter
is designed to encourage pastors and churches by providing them with
the facts concerning their freedom to exercise their First Amendment
right to free speech on the important moral issues that impact their
communities.”
ADF is a legal
alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through
strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
