Ohio Churches Under Fire for Political Activities

Two Ohio churches are under fire for their close ties with Republican politics:

In a challenge to the ethics of conservative Ohio religious leaders and the fairness of the Internal Revenue Service, a group of 56 clergy members contends that two churches have gone too far in supporting a Republican candidate for governor.

Two complaints filed with the tax agency say that the large Columbus area churches, active in President Bush's narrow Ohio win in 2004, violated their tax-exempt status by pushing the candidacy of J. Kenneth Blackwell, who is the secretary of state and the favored candidate of Ohio's religious right.

The clergy members said the churches improperly held political activities and allowed Republican organizations to use their facilities.

There is fine line here between being able to speak out on issues and being able to criticize politicians for their policies and actually endorsing candidates and using your religious resources for clearly partisan politics. If these churches actually publicly endorsed a candidate and urged their followers to work for him they crossed that line.