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Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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November 08, 2007
Senator Charles Grassley vs the First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof - US Constitution, Amendment I
As the ranking Republican member of the Finance Committee, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa has launched himself a little crusade against televangelists. On November 5th, he sent out a letter to six ministries presuming to demand that they turn over financial records to his committee by December 6th. They include ministries headed by Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn. Three of them (Hinn, Dollar and Copeland) also sit on the Board of Regents of Oral Roberts University.
There does not seem to be any even half-baked accusations that any of these ministries are breaking any law or doing anything underhanded. There doesn't seem to be even one disgruntled former parishioner complaining.
According to CBS News:
The letters sent Monday were the culmination of a long investigation fueled in part by complaints from Ole Anthony, a crusader against religious fraud who operates the Dallas-based Trinity Foundation, which describes itself as a watchdog monitoring religious media, fraud and abuse. "We've been working with them for two years," Anthony told CBS News. "We have furnished them with enough information to fill a small Volkswagen."
Anthony said after twenty years of working with media organizations to expose televangelists, he saw little reform. He says that's why he turned to another tactic, going straight to Grassley. He is confident that Grassley's inquiry will be different, "What we hope is that this will lead to reform in religious nonprofits."
Why would this busybody Mr Anthony presume to have a right to any say in the private affairs of not just one church, but all churches? Presumably he is not contributing money to them, and is not a stockholder. Has he been injured in a tort manner by any of these churches? What is his standing to be trying to sic the federal government on these churches?
The senator's broad excuse seems to be some general complaint that these ministers are living high on the hog for being tax exempt organizations. This is not a crime however, nor is it any business of the Congress. One might wish that the senator would instead be investigating the high living of members and friends of congress. For starters, the main job of the Senate Finance Committee is supposed to be the finances of the US government. The US government spends taxpayer money, which none of these churches do.
The people giving Joyce Meyer money do so willingly - however foolish others of us might think them. Plus, the entire yearly budgets of every one of those ministries together doesn't amount to even just the corrupt payoffs that Grassley et al hand out of the federal treasury year after year in useless ethanol subsidies - to pick one infamous Iowa political specialty.
Beyond that, Grassley's baseless fishing expedition is a pretty major and blatant violation of the basic First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. It's not the job of Congress to be investigating any minor lawbreaking by private citizens. If there were tax laws being broken, the IRS would be the folks to look into that. But what's the basis for even thinking that there might be tax violations?
Did the senator just see that Benny Hinn was wearing a Rolex and get indignant? "For it is written in the law of Moses, thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen?" 1 Corinthians 9:9.
The real point seems to be simply that a lot of people hate televangelists for whatever range of reasons. Hey, I don't particularly think much of most of this lot myself - except for the late, great Dr Gene Scott, God bless him. But then, none of these guys are working out of my pocket (unlike Senator Grassley).
Most of the evangelicals watching those shows probably would not approve of much of what I like to watch. Yet I generally don't hear any of them trying to get congressmen to screw over South Park. [Actually, it would be sweet to get Parker and Stone in front of a senate committee. That might be even better than Zappa at Senator Gore's porn rock hearings 20 years ago.]
Fortunately, this Senator Grassley is just a mealy-mouthed congressman, rather than Attorney General or POTUS. So at least there'll be no Waco treatment for the churches that Grassley hates. Thank God for small favors.
posted by Al at 11/08/2007 10:54:00 AM
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