Thank you Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Thanks to your unstinting efforts to save America from the boogey-man of Theocracy...

...we may have real government informants attending church services to make sure that free speech is not committed....

...plus more selective prosecution of ungood badthink speech!

Just like the Nazis and the Pulpit Law!

//The Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Internal Revenue Service reached an agreement today (July 17) that resolves for the time being an ongoing federal lawsuit over non-enforcement of restrictions on political activity by tax-exempt religious organizations and churches.

“This is a victory, and we’re pleased with this development in which the IRS has proved to our satisfaction that it now has in place a protocol to enforce its own anti-electioneering provisions,” said FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor.

“Of course, we have the complication of a moratorium currently in place on any IRS investigations of any tax-exempt entities, church or otherwise, due to the congressional probe of the IRS. FFRF could refile the suit if anti-electioneering provisions are not enforced in the future against rogue political churches.”

FFRF filed suit against the IRS shortly after the presidential election in 2012, based on the agency’s reported enforcement moratorium, as evidenced by open and notorious politicking by churches. Pulpit Freedom Sunday, in fact, has become an annual occasion for churches to violate the law with impunity. The IRS, meanwhile, admittedly was not enforcing the restrictions against churches. A prior lawsuit in 2009 required the IRS to designate an appropriate high-ranking official to initiate church tax examinations, but it had apparently failed to do so.

The IRS has now resolved the signature authority issue necessary to initiate church examinations. The IRS also has adopted procedures for reviewing, evaluating and determining whether to initiate church investigations. While the IRS retains “prosecutorial” discretion with regard to any individual case, the IRS no longer has a blanket policy or practice of non-enforcement of political activity restrictions as to churches.   //

Prosecutorial discretion is the key with this crowd.

On the Pulpit Law - see this Wiki article.

US News & World Report tells Americans to Impose a Religious Test.

Wow!  This kind of thing was supposed to have died out along with segregated schools and other forms of bigotry.

Catholics in high places of power have the most trouble, I've noticed, practicing the separation of church and state. The pugnacious Catholic Justice, Antonin Scalia, is the most aggressive offender on the Court, but not the only one. Of course, we can't know for sure what Sotomayor was thinking, but it seems she has joined the ranks of the five Republican Catholic men on the John Roberts Court in showing a clear religious bias when it comes to women's rights and liberties. We can no longer be silent about this. Thomas Jefferson, the principal champion of the separation between state and church, was thinking particularly of pernicious Rome in his writings. He deeply distrusted the narrowness of Vatican hegemony.

So, Catholics in "high places of power" can't be trusted not to take orders from the Pope?

"Pernicious Rome"????

What is this?  The 19th Century?

Could you imagine this kind of thing being said about Muslims?

As a Catholic, here's the belief I want to impose - Leave us fargin' alone! 

The State has the power and ability to determine how we live or die, but Democrats are worried about Catholics imposing their beliefs on others????

More Scalia

Sotomayor’s blow brings us to confront an uncomfortable reality. More than WASPS, Methodists, Jews, Quakers or Baptists…

Holy Crap, now she’s channeling Archie Bunker!

…Catholics often try to impose their beliefs on you, me, public discourse and institutions. Especially if “you” are female. This is not true of all Catholics – just look at House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Yeah, Archie Bunker thought that “Little Elmo” down at the docks was “one of the ‘good’ ones”, too.

So, the editorial policy of the USN&W seems to be that Catholics are by nature - if they are truly Catholic - undemocratic and crypto-totalitarian?

This is not a new position, by the way. It was the subject of a very influential book written in the 1950s prior to the Kennedy election.

I can't believe that this kind of "faith-baiting" is being published by a supposedly reputable journal...well, actually I can.

The Obama Kulturkampf Continues.


Elizabeth Scalia takes on another bit of anti-Catholic noise from the US World and News Report.

In this one, the author tries to make sure that Sotomayor stays on the Democrat Reservation for Women and People of Color by mocking her Catholic upbringing.

Stiehm opens with a reveal: she apparently believes that Supreme Court Justices are not supposed to open-mindedly weigh any question before them on its own merits, or check with the constitution. Rather, they should be dependably ideological. Since Sotomayor seems shaky on that point, Stiehm serves her a schoolyard sneer: “what are ya, agood Catholic girl?” Can’t you just hear it?

The Supreme Court is now best understood as the Extreme Court. One big reason why is that six out of nine Justices are Catholic. Let’s be forthright about that. (The other three are Jewish.) Sotomayor, appointed by President Obama, is a Catholic who put her religion ahead of her jurisprudence. What a surprise, but that is no small thing.

Alternate paragraph: “The Supreme Court is full of Catholics and Jews! Not enough enlightened people! The Jews might be alright — they know how to lay low, by now — but these Catholics can’t be trusted! They’re in league with Rome!” Should we tell her that Obamacare’s Individual Mandate survives thanks to the Catholic Chief Justice, John Roberts? Oh, let’s not trouble her with facts and spoil her fun!

That first graph does demand a question, though: is Sotomayor some Rome-bediant, floor-kissin’, passionately papist plant? The answer is important because Stiehm is basing her whole thesis on the idea that she is. The answer is: she’s rather typically Catholic, no daily church-goer like that bad guy, Antonin Scalia.

“Judge Sotomayor was raised as a Catholic and attends church for family celebrations and other important events.”

From the same article:

In 1994, Sotomayor allowed two state prison inmates to wear multicolored bead necklaces under their clothing. The inmates said wearing the beads was essential to their religious faith, Santeria. Prison officials argued that the beads were gang symbols that provoked fights.

Sotomayor, who attended Catholic schools as a child, saw the issue in terms of religious freedom. After chastening officials for favoring “traditional” religions like Catholicism over “nontraditional” religions like Santeria, she ruled that such distinctions were “intolerable.”

That’s bad news, for Stiehm. Sotomayor appears to be that most dangerous thing: an open-minded justice who refers to the constitution! Oh, noes! And she’s Catholic!