H.Con.Res.415 (7th paragraph) http://files.statesurge.com/file/806751

All churches include some sort of moral code as a part of their doctrine, and urge their followers to hold those to those values. If a church says “drinking is wrong” then faithful followers will hold that value and it will influence everything from what they do on Friday night to how they vote on alcohol laws. If a religious person believes “X is wrong” because their pastor said so and then X becomes a political issue, what should be done? Should all pastors take back what they said and say X is neither right nor wrong because it is a political issue now and I want to maintain my tax-exempt status? The fact is that the LDS church has essentially been telling its members to vote yes on prop 8 ever since 1830. It doesn’t matter what the name of the bill or proposition is, if Bill X is somehow against the doctrine of Local Church A, then followers of Local Church A have already been told implicitly to vote against Bill X, even if the pastor does not explicitly denounce Bill X.

This is the IRS text explanation for tax-exemption: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=181570,00.html

By law, organizations exempt from tax under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) may not “participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00000501—-000-.html

Admittedly the same section mentions “no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)),” and subsection (h) gives the general rule, but (d)(2) actually lists the exceptions. I must admit it looks bad for the church, because (d)(2)(C) could only apply if you redefine the “legislative body” to be the voting public because this vote was for the general public and not the “legislative branch” of Cal. government. Even for me that seems like a bit of a stretch. And the exception in (d)(2)(D) does not apply because of (d)(3)(B). The church did indeed “directly encourage such member[s] to urge persons other than members to” support prop 8.

I will admit there is more to the argument that my church should loose its tax-exempt status than I had thought before researching it. Ultimately it would be an argument about key terms and definitions.

Besides the general problem and principle of church trying to influence state, there is the tax-exempt status that Karen points out. I would think after the concerns with Prop 8, the Mormon church would be walking a little more carefully when making political statements.

However, what the two of them did is not comparable to me doing the same. I am not registered as a 501c3 organization and thus I am not restricted from using my site for political purposes, in part or whole.

And that’s the root of the problem with the LDS church at this point – misuse of it’s tax-free status as such an organization to influence legislation. Individual Mormons may work to see that a piece of legislation is defeated, but the church itself cannot.

So it is a bit of a stretch to say these two individuals represent the maximum potential of 2.5 million active US members who may or may not really care if this ballot issue passes or fails. On an only slightly related note: even if the Prophet or other General Authorities of the Church said “vote No” it would still be the agency of each member to choose according to their conscience.

It would be no more or less effective than bligbi.com telling its readers to “vote Yes.” In the end we still live in a democratic republic. Politicians are usually the only members of society with a vote on issues and policy, the rest of us can only threaten them with our votes in their elections.

Mormons aren’t the only church on the warpath.

Generally speaking the LDS church adopts a neutral stance on political issues
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/public-issues/political-neutrality
,BUT the church does reserve the right to tell its members what to do it a political/social issue is also what could be considered a moral issue. The best example of this is Prop 8 in California. However, the Prop 8 efforts which the official body of the church rallied came in the form of letters sent to the bishops to be read to the entire congregation. The Church Headquarters doesn’t use the ListServ to inform its members of anything really. I’ve never gotten an email from Salt Lake, but I have received reminders about Christmas parties. So basically, this email is isolated and represents the desires of two individuals(Sister Combs and Bishop Church).

Officially the LDS Church HQ probably would be against this bill, but that is only an assumption seeing as how the Church has no official statement on this Bill. This email is no different than a teacher using the school district ListServ to invite other teachers to vote in favor of a bill that would increase school funding. The school district hasn’t taken a stance in this example, but it could be assumed they would be in favor of something that would provide more money for education. People who opposed the bill would be wrong to attack the school district for this teacher’s independent action in sending the email.