According to The Weekly Standard, Senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett had quite a bit to say this past Sunday at the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. A local reporter seen in the video below describes it as more of a “political rally or early campaign stop.” Her clear promotion of Barack Obama, along with the usual Republican bashing, was followed by the pastor’s own attack on candidate Newt Gingrich.
Knowing how important the issue of separation of church and state is to progressives (well, at least sometimes), one has to wonder how this possibly could have transpired. The IRS site seems to state how they feel about it quite clearly (emphasis mine):
Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.
What they did at the pulpit on Sunday sure looked like a public statement to me. It should be interesting to see just how quickly the IRS pursues this, as I’m sure they would not want to indicate any kind of bias in the enforcement of our tax laws.
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