A Stitch in Haste

OpinionJournal is engaging in a bit of inconsistency:

Under the 1954 Revenue Act, 501(c)(3) organizations risk losing their tax-exempt status if they "participate in, or intervene in ... any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for political office." Over the past two years scores of organizations have faced scrutiny for allegedly mixing their political convictions with their religious ones. And this summer the IRS expanded a program it first launched in 2004 to take direct aim at political advocacy inside houses of worship.
...
It is true that the prohibition on church-centered political activity is decades old. But it is also true, as the IRS admits, that there is no "bright line test" to determine what constitutes political activity. Churches have always tried to influence voters on moral issues. What is different now is that moral issues -- abortion, stem-cell research, same-sex marriage, war -- are now hot political issues, and the IRS is pushing religious communities out of the debate.

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

Remind me again who insisted that government money -- which a tax exemption certainly is -- can come with strings attached?

Oh, right -- OpinionJournal -- back when they (along with other anti-gay factions) liked it when strings were being attached to government beneficence, in the form of the anti-First Amendment Solomon Amendment back when it was being (unsuccessfully) challenged in Rumsfeld v. FAIR, No. 04-1152 (2006):

In any event, there should be no legal question about Congress's right to put conditions on grants of federal funds to universities. It does this all the time -- including requirements that colleges adhere to certain civil rights and gender standards. With a few exceptions, universities have no trouble going along and courts have no problem letting them.

Universities are tax-exempt; churches are tax-exempt. Universities have First Amendment protections; churches have First Amendment protections. The Solomon "strings attached" apply to all universities equally; the tax-exemption "strings attached" apply to all churches equally. Most universities "have no trouble going along" with the strings attached for them; most churches "have no trouble going along" with the strings attached for them.

And yet OpinionJournal endorses one while condemning the other. Go figure.

Sometimes you can just choke on the hypocrisy of social conservatives.