A Stitch in Haste

Back in May I blogged the following:

The chronic inaction of the Internal Revenue Service regarding the patently illegal political activities of fundamentalist Christian churches and clerics will one day go down as among the great scandals of American governance. But today is not that day...

Still, it's getting closer:

The Internal Revenue Service has been warning churches and nonprofit organizations that improper campaigning in the upcoming political season could endanger their tax-exempt status.

In notices to more than 15,000 tax-exempt organizations, numerous church denominations and tax preparers, the agency has detailed its new enforcement program, called the Political Activity Compliance Initiative[.]

Under the initiative, the IRS plans to expedite investigations into claims of improper campaigning, no longer waiting for an annual tax return to be filed or the tax year to end before launching a probe.

The horror stories in recent campaigns, especially with fundamentalist Christians preaching bigotry from the pulpit in the form of flagrant campaigning for passage of state anti-gay-marriage amendments, were enraging in terms of both their intensity and their frequency. And essentially nothing was done, either proactively or after the fact.

And it is very much ongoing:

A nondenominational church in Texas that has donated $1,500 to the local Republican Party should be investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
...
"This appears to be a blatant violation of federal law," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United.
...
"When church-goers place their hard-earned money in the collection plate, they do not expect it to wind up in the hands of politicians," Lynn added. "That's an abuse of the people's trust and a flouting of the law."

The money went to Republicans. Go figure.

Of course, one puny redneck church in Texas hardly means anything. Pat Robertson in jail for tax fraud is closer to what must happen before this omnipresent law-breaking by supposed "Christians" will end.