News on Monday that John McCain and Barack Obama would be speaking at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest attracted plenty of comments, questioning if that didn’t violate the separation of church and state. I’ll get into why it doesn’t, officially, but first let’s look at the latest OC Political Pulse poll, where none of the 10 demographic groups said candidates should be banned from speaking at houses of worship.

Those who felt most strongly that they should be allowed to speak were conservative Christians (92%) and progressive Christians (81%). Democrats were among the most torn over the question, with 53% saying they should be allowed to speak. As for Republicans, 77% said they should be allowed to speak.

Candidates from both major parties have long visited churches at campaign time, sometimes making speeches there. Preachers have often talked about politics with thinly veiled references as to who they favor — consider Catholic Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, who earlier this summer said any Catholic who votes for a politician who supports abortion rights is committing a grave sin and must confess before receiving communion.

What is expressly prohibited by the Internal Revenue Service is using the material resources of a church or other religious organization for electioneering. That would violate the IRS terms for tax-exempt organizations.

The IRS seems to give an, ahem, liberal definition to electioneering. Consider its decision in May to not penalize Buena Park Pastor Wiley Drake.

Drake sent out an email using church letterhead - which included the listing of Drake as pastor - announcing his endorsement of Mike Huckabee. He also discussed Huckabee on his internet radio show.

Both actions were taken separate from the church and not funded by the church, the IRS said.

Obama and McCain, on the other hand, will be directly participating in an event on church property, but one is going to be hard-pressed to argue that megachurch Pastor Rick Warren is using his resources to promote the candidacy of one or the other.

Warren’s annual AIDS summit at the church attracted high-profile politicians, including Huckabee and Obama in 2006. McCain and Obama both delivered video addresses at the summit last year.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 4:12 pm and is filed under Candidates' OC visits, McCain, OC Political Pulse, Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.