On Sunday, September 28th dozens of pastors nationwide will make a presidential endorsement from the pulpit. This deliberate defiance of IRS Rules is being organized by the Alliance Defense Fund with the stated purpose of creating a court challenge to the 54 year old ban.
How big will this be? According to the ADF at least 36 church leaders in at least 20 states have signed on to participate.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State describes the ADF as:
a theocracy-minded legal operation founded by right-wing religious broadcasters
As a result, there is little doubt that the result of this stunt will be dozens of endorsements for McCain around the nation delivered during church services, during sermons to the captive audience that is the congregation.
In response Americans United for Separation of Church and State and 55 pastors from around the nation have filed a complaint with the IRS to stop this from happening - although it is unclear what the IRS could do to stop people willing to break the law; they can only penalize after the law has been broken.
While there are many important legal issues here, I'm going to focus on the electoral issues. The authoritarian conservatives who currently control the executive branch are terrified of losing power. As a result, over the next sixty-four days we will see more and more of this kind of thing. We will see voter registrars threatening college students that if they register to vote, they will lose scholarships and their incur tax penalties. We will see voter rolls purged in states and counties where Republicans have the power to do so. We will see news organizations pressured to alter their coverage in favor of McCain.
The authoritarian conservatives will act in complete disregard of the law this year. Partly because the last four years have emboldened them, and partly because they are betting everything on winning. No question they know these tactics are illegal. No question they know that heavy penalties might be levied against these churches. But that's the gamble - if McCain wins, it's all good for them - he's got their back, they'll pay the price from the bottomless coffers of organizations like the Alliance Defense Fund and Focus on the Family.
They don't care if Democrats or Americans United For Separation of Church and State sue or demand federal action. By the time any legal action takes effect, by the time any administrative consequence hits - the election will be over. So go ahead and sue, or file a complaint or even write a sternly worded letter because conservative authoritarians don't give a damn.
Remember what they told Ron Suskind as far back as 2004?
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
While we write letters, file complaints, file lawsuits, ask for injunctions - they will act. As bad as this is, expect things to get worse.
The real question is: What can we do about it?
Elise at Daily Kos has some good suggestions:
Here are some actions you can take: (instead of that hand wringing you're doing)
- Donate. And then donate again. And then email all your friends and family and ask them to donate too.
- Make calls from home. It's easy. I do it every day. And when you're done making calls from home. Make some more calls from home.
- Attend an event near you.
- Pissed off about smears? Join the Action Wire Team and fight the smears. Do it here, do it at work, flyer your grocery store or the Main street in your town, etc.
- Make sure you are registered to vote.
- Join MyBarackObama.com
- Sign up to get information on campaign events.
- Explain Obama's policy stances and ideas. (And if you think this is useless - I can't tell you how many voters I have persuaded downloading this Blueprint for Change and explaining it.)
- Buy some Obama gear. Buy lots of it. Wear it everywhere. Give it to people as gifts.