f Tax Law Bans on Political Campaign Speech by Houses of Worship: Inappropriate Government Censorship and Intrusion on Religion

References

1.  130 S. Ct. 876 (2010).
2.  26 U.S.C. § 501(c)(3) (2006).
3.  Crimm & Winer, supra note 37, at 58–59. Much of the economic value to houses of worship may accrue as a result of tax provisions linked to their § 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, such as other federal tax accommodations, including the potential to opt out of paying employer-contributed federal unemployment and social security taxes, and financial support received by tax-deductible contributions, as well as state tax benefits, including a property tax exemption. Ibid. at 59–66.
4.  In1970, in the context of state property tax and sales and use tax, the Court approved as consistent with the Establishment Clause a real property tax providing an exemption for property of public welfare organizations, as well as for property of religious entities used solely for religious purposes. Walz, 397 U.S. at 664. Nineteen years later, a sharply divided Court sustained an Establishment Clause challenge to an exemption from the generally applicable Texas sales and use tax on publication sales because it singularly benefited sales of religious publications. Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U.S. 1 (1989). Within another year the Court ruled that the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause do not prohibit the government from taxing religious articles or compel a specially targeted tax exemption for religion from a generally applicable tax on secular and religious entities. Jimmy Swaggart Ministries v. Board of Equalization of Cal., 493 U.S. 378 (1990). Thus, as in Walz, the Establishment Clause may permit a legislatively created state property tax exemption that does not target religion exclusively. At the same time, as in Jimmy Swaggart Ministries and Texas Monthly, it is neither constitutionally necessary nor permissible for the state legislature to single out religion for a special accommodation to a generally applicable sales and use tax.
5.  494 U.S. 872 (1990). In Smith, two members of the Native American Church ingested peyote for sacramental purposes and therefore were fired from their jobs with a private drug rehabilitation organization. The state then denied them unemployment compensation benefits because they had been fired for work-related misconduct. The employees unsuccessfully claimed that under the Free Exercise Clause the state could not prohibit their religiously inspired, sacramental use of peyote despite the generally applicable controlled substance law.
6.  Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat.1488, § 5(4) (1993) (codified as 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb–2000bb-4).
7.  42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1 (2006). The Supreme Court soon held that RFRA cannot be applied to state and local governments, City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507, 520 (1997), but it still applies to the federal government. Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006).
8.  French Constitution of1958, Art. 4.