According to a recent inquiry made by Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said the recent Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage does not affect the laws applicable to tax exempt organizations.
CNA/EWTN News is reporting that at least for now, churches should not fear losing their tax-exempt status for refusing to recognize same-sex marriage. The unions became legal after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges declaring that gays had a “fundamental right to marry”.
“The IRS does not intend to change the standards that apply to section 501(c)(3) organizations by reason of the Obergefell decision,” Koskinen said in response to Pruitt’s inquiry.
The commissioner went on to say that the IRS does not view the Supreme Court decision as “having changed the law applicable to section 501(c)(3) determinations or examinations.”
Pruitt called the statement “a victory for religious freedom in America and for the non-profit charities, churches, and religiously affiliated universities who feared they would be denied tax-exempt status by the IRS because their sincerely held religious beliefs prohibit them from participating in same-sex marriage.”
However, he did say that his office intended to “trust but verify” the IRS by monitoring its actions to “ensure Americans aren’t targeted unfairly for exercising their religious beliefs.”
Pruitt made the inquiry in response to remarks made during hearings before the Supreme Court when U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verilli asked whether an organization that believed marriage could only be a union of one man and one women could face threats to its tax exemption status. Verilli responded by saying that this was “certainly going to be an issue.”
Chief Justice John Roberts also mentioned the threat in his dissent of the Obergefell ruling when he wrote: “There is little doubt that these and similar questions will soon be before this court.”
There is precedent for the IRS to strip organizations of their protected tax status, such as what happened in the wake of rulings which outlawed racial discrimination. In 1976, Bob Jones University, an evangelical Christian school, lost its tax exempt status because it banned interracial dating on religious grounds.
At present, there is no federal law barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, however many states have enacted laws that prohibit any form of discrimination based on sexual preference. These laws have already been used against Christian business owners such as Aaron and Melissa Klein of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, an Oregon-based bakery, who were fined for violating state law after refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex couple.
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace® http://www.womenofgrace.com
