Donald Trump Loosens Free Speech Cuffs on Churches

By Geller Report Staff 

President Donald Trump, in an executive order released Thursday — timed to coincide with National Prayer Day — loosened some of the Internal Revenue Service restrictions on churches that prevented pastors from preaching about politics from the pulpits.

Specifically, he called for the easing of the tax agency’s enforcement of the Johnson Amendment, a decades-old rule that bans churches from openly endorsing political candidates.

The rule’s been used by far-leftists and atheist groups, like the Freedom From Religious Foundation, in recent years to clamp all types of speech in churches that seem applicable to modern day issues, however. The FFRF, for example, complained in 2012 to the IRS that a bishop was breaking the Johbnson Amendment by telling readers of a local newspaper in a letter to the editor that Catholics, in good conscience, could not vote for candidates who favored gay marriage and abortion.

Trump’s newest executive order makes clear: such enforcement is above and beyond the scope of the Johnson Amendment.

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