By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU), an organization that has long been responsible for reporting Christian churches and pastors to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for tax exempt status violations, has been reported to the IRS for violating the same laws.
According to a report by WorldNetDaily, Liberty Council, a public interest law firm, has reported AU to the IRS, alleging that the organization’s actions “violate the same tax-exempt laws it pretends to uphold and the group has become merely a façade for a liberal agenda and the Democratic Party.”
“This group has crossed the line one too many times,” the letter said. “The IRS needs to put a stop to AU’s partisan intimidation tactics.”
Americans United is famous for filing demands with the IRS to investigate conservative organizations and ministries, including a recent letter seeking an investigation of Liberty University for allegedly banning the student Democrat club, a charge based on an erroneous media report.
The Liberty Counsel letter to IRS Commissioner Sarah Ingram said, “AU is not concerned with the truth. It is only concerned with getting its name in the media. Its statements are designed to intimidate, silence, and harm those with whom it disagrees.
“AU’s activity is both reckless and partisan. It is reckless because AU never investigates the accuracy of its alleged complaints. Its pattern of reckless disregard of the truth, coupled with its malicious intent to injure those with whom AU disagrees is patently obvious,” the letter said.
Liberty Counsel said Americans United is violating “the same tax-exempt laws it pretends to uphold.”
In a statement posted on the organizations website, Americans United said the complaint is “groundless.”
“This is a desperate diversionary tactic, and it will fail,” said Barry W. Lynn, Americans United’s executive director.
Liberty Council lawyers also point out in their letter to the IRS that Americans United frequently complains about Christian organizations while remaining silent about cases involving churches affiliated with liberal politics.
“AU has essentially become an arm of the Democratic Party,” the letter said. “Churches or nonprofit organizations having anything to do with conservative causes or Republican policies or candidates are targeted by AU. But churches or nonprofit organizations having anything to do with liberal or Democratic policies or candidates go unnoticed.”
For example, Americans United complained when a California pastor – as an individual – endorsed a political candidate. But it did not raise the issue when Democratic operatives and candidates delivered multiple political speeches in churches such as when Sen. Hillary Clinton spoke at Greater Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis last year, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, spoke at Brookins Community A.M.E. church in California.
Similarly, President Obama “unashamedly politicked” from a church pulpit and “AU took no action: no press releases and no requests for a formal investigation by the IRS,” the letter said.
Liberty Council is asking the IRS to stop the AU from continuing to waste taxpayer dollars by filing these spurious complaints and their selective harassment of conservative churches and organizations. They are also asking for a full investigation of the AU’s “partisan pattern of filing complaints and the partisan activities of to determine whether such abuses represent illegal activities that jeopardize its current tax-exempt 501(c)(3) incorporation.”
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