1 post tagged “influencing elections”

Hiram Sasser, an attorney for the Houston Area Pastors Council, says the tables are being turned on Barry Lynn and his liberal group Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The Houston Area Pastor Council (HAPC) sent a letter to the IRS accusing Lynn's group of attempting to influence the upcoming presidential elections. The complaint says Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) has tried to chill the speech of ministers nationwide by filing and publicizing frivolous complaints with the IRS against pastors.
 
Sasser, with Liberty Legal Institute, represents HAPC. He says AU has attempted to bully pastors into silence for years. "[Lynn's] trying to intimidate pastors and trying to prevent those pastors and other pastors from speaking out on the 1candidates of their choice. But by doing ... what he's doing, he's tampering with the election process. And since the Americans United for Separation of Church and State is non-profit, answerable to the IRS, they're violating the very rule they're trying to use to intimidate others," Sasser contends.
 
Lynn and his liberal organization, according to Sasser, have silenced many churches and pastors through intimidation. "This intimidation strategy that Barry Lynn and the separation of church and state group have had for a long time has been working very well," the attorney admits. "Pastors are fearful of engaging in their First Amendment right to endorse candidates in their personal capacities because of this type of intimidation. We need to put a stop to this. If anyone has been unlawfully interfering with elections, it has been Barry Lynn," Sasser says.
 
The letter to the IRS point out that AU files its complaints not after, but before elections -- and then makes a public announcement.
 
Sasser points out that if Americans United cared about the supposed "separation of church and state," they would not be so interested in getting the government involved in harassing pastors and churches.