Get out the vote, keep out the Christians

As the “Hawkeye Caucii” (Hawkus Caucus?) get under way in Iowa, conservative Christian pastors have been warned that they better not support Mike Huckabee, according to the Associated Press.

Several Iowa pastors who have publicly supported Huckabee have received letters in the last few weeks warning them that they could be prosecuted, fined by the IRS and investigated by the U.S. Senate for backing political candidates.

This isn’t the first vote where this sort of thing has happened. In the last national election, conservative pastors in Southern California reported receiving such threats before the vote, and there have been similar reports in recent years from pastors in other states.

While liberal churches occasionally run afoul of the IRS, such as happened to All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif., in 2004, it seems that the most frequent targets of such letters have been conservative churches where the pastor and the congregation have shown strong support for Republican candidates.

During this election cycle, ultraliberal groups like Americans United for Separation of Church and State have been busily firing off complaints to the IRS, urging it to target churches such as First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, Calif., where, again, the pastor endorsed Huckabee.

(The AUSCS took time off for the holidays, which its leaders spent trying to get more than a dozen cities to remove Nativity displays or at least pair them with inoffensive, inclusive symbols, such as pentacles. They also tried to shut down a South Carolina ministry that gave away 25,000 pairs of shoes to poor children identified by public school officials. Ah, the hard work of protecting religious liberty never ceases. … But I digress.)

In the case of the letters sent to Iowa pastors, there were no return addresses and nothing to identify the courageous senders. Most of the recipients apparently laughed off the letters as a political stunt.

With luck, the Iowa pastors will have the last laugh. But the ability to maintain optimism in the face of such assaults on the free speech and religious rights of Christians should not be taken as evidence that this is not a serious issue.

The IRS has for decades had regulations barring politicking by nonprofit organizations, but the enforcement against churches seems to be inspired by a more recent effort to shut out Christians from public life. The “wall of separation of church and state” concept was manufactured by a liberal court and has been used by courts and interest groups to systematically remove Christianity from public sight.

Thomas Jefferson, who actually coined the phrase absconded by the courts, meant for the “wall” to protect churches from government, not vice versa. Like all the Founding Fathers, Jefferson was of the opinion that the American form of government could not possibly succeed without the involvement of educated, religious people in the larger society.

No matter what law they may thump or court precedent they cite, people who would keep Christians out of the public debate and silence their views are no friends of religion or liberty.

Global warming: States’ rights for all the wrong reasons

California, joined by 15 other states and egged on by a gaggle of environmental groups, has decided to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for not allowing the Left Coast to set its own standards for automobile emissions.

I’m not normally an ambivalent person, but this story’s really got me torn in two.

On the one hand, the federal government has far outgrown its britches and habitually gets away with stealing from the states’ plate, so I’m all for anything that aims to take Uncle Sam’s belt size down a notch or two.

On the other hand, the whole point of this little exercise is to allow California’s governator and interstellar cast of legislators to “save the world” from the monster that is global warming.

No expense will be spared, of course, in the pursuit of enviro-justice. But don’t fret about the legal bills racked up in this “me-first” pursuit of the global warming ghostie — your next dozen years’ worth of paychecks ought to cover your share of the cost just fine.

In case it’s escaped anyone’s notice, California’s populace is long on good intentions but desperately short of common sense, a problem that is only compounded by the popularity-contest mentality in Sacramento.

Giving California officials the power to set emissions standards for the whole country is a little like letting a tofu-snorting hippy set standards for the Cordon Bleu.

It would be nice if, while pursuing the state’s legal right to ignore the federal government, state officials would give a thought to individuals’ right to opt out of this global warming nonsense.