Churches should be non-taxable

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I fully believe that the first amendment of the United States is being violated by the IRS. When churches are faced with the choice of: pay taxes or preach religion according to our laws, I see a clear violation of our right to freely exercise religion. Here is a statement by "Catholics for a Free Choice".

This group seems to be a front group for the abortion racket, a key component of the Democrat party. From the press release:

• CFFC has called on the IRS to exercise its “immediate action against the Archdiocese of Denver, which has violated its status as a public charity under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 501(c)(3) by intervening in campaigns for public office.”

Continuing on, they claim that

• Archbishop Chaput, leader of the Archdiocese of Denver, has repeatedly engaged in voter instruction by explicitly urging Catholics to vote against candidates who support abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research. In fourteen of 28 of his columns in the archdiocese’s weekly newspaper, Archbishop Chaput has repeatedly and continuously urged voters to reject candidates opposed to the organization’s views.

The CFFC is an outfit attempting to suggest that "American Catholics" are a wide variety of people, each having different views on issues. Here is their website's "about us" section. I'm not Catholic, but I was under the impression that the Pope sets policy for the Catholic church worldwide. If an individual or group disagrees with his decree, they must leave the church (voluntarily or otherwise) and align with some other group. The tenets of Catholicism are not left up to the whims of individual churches. The CFFC seems to disagree.

UPDATE: In a new story today, this same outfit has filed charges against the Archdiocese of St. Louis, MO. According to this story:

• A Catholic abortion rights group is asking the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Archdiocese of St. Louis and halt any further attempts by the archdiocese to influence the Nov. 2 election.

  The Washington-based Catholics for a Free Choice filed a complaint with the IRS on Tuesday, saying the archdiocese violated its status as a public charity under federal tax laws.
  

  The complaint says St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke has "explicitly urged Catholics" to vote against certain candidates and has "clearly crossed the line into political intervention." Officials at the archdiocese declined to comment.

UPDATE: The IRS says that people in tax-exempt churches cannot pray for Bush to win the election.