Trump Set to Relax Enforcement of Ban on Religious Groups’ Political Activity

Last Updated: May 4, 2017 11:48 AM

- Ken Bredemeier

President Donald Trump, accompanied by Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl, speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, May 4, 2017, before signing an executive order aimed at easing an IRS rule limiting political activity for churches.

Trump Relaxes Enforcement of Ban on Religious Groups' Political Activity

WASHINGTON -

President Donald Trump has loosened the government's enforcement of a rule that bars tax-exempt churches from participating in political activity.

Trump signed an executive order Thursday that would give "maximum enforcement discretion" to the country's tax agency, the Internal Revenue Service, in tracking the ban on political activity by religious groups, an edict that already is rarely enforced.

His order also would give "regulatory relief" to conservative religious groups that object to provisions of the national health care reforms advocated by former President Barack Obama that required them to pay for health insurance plans that cover birth control and other measures that they feel go against their religious beliefs.

Birth control insurance coverage

Trump signed the order on religious liberties as he greeted Christian conservatives at the White House on what has been designated as the National Day of Prayer. Exit polls during last November's presidential election showed Trump defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton by a 5-to-1 margin among evangelical Christians, and he promised this niche of voters that he would address their concerns about government policies when he assumed power.

The order, however, does not include a controversial provision in a draft that circulated in Washington earlier this year that could have allowed federal contractors on the basis of faith to discriminate against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered people and single mothers.

No legal challenge expected

In previewing Trump's order, a White House official said, "All laws still apply. Anything that would currently be illegal under current law would still be illegal; we're not changing the law. No one's suggesting that churches can take out political ads."

The official said the White House is not expecting a legal challenge to the order since it is not changing the law. But lawyers for both the American Civil Liberties Union and the Human Rights Campaign said they would immediately file a legal challenge if it discriminates against the LGBT community or allows employers to deny birth control services in the health care plans they offer to women.

The order offers a guiding principle of the Trump White House, "that it is the policy of the administration to protect and vigorously promote religious liberty."

Trump's edict aims to weaken the already lax enforcement of a tax regulation that was put into effect in 1954 and was named after then Senator Lyndon Johnson, who later became a U.S. president in the 1960s. It prohibited partisan political activity for churches and other tax-exempt organizations. It allows a wide range of advocacy on political issues, such as support or opposition to abortion or gay rights, but bans outright political endorsements from the pulpit.

The rule has rarely been enforced, however, and only one church is known to have lost its tax-exempt status, in 1992, when a New York church took out newspaper ads calling for the defeat of presidential candidate Bill Clinton, who nonetheless was elected that year.

Despite lax enforcement of the rule, conservatives have long called for its repeal, saying it inhibits free speech.

The "regulatory relief" Trump is granting on the health law could benefit groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, a religious order that has objected to paying for birth control costs in health insurance plans for women who work in the nursing homes the group operates.

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