The IRS is threatening All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena California with its tax exempt status because the priest gave an anti-war sermon. I'm baffled. How does speaking out on an issue constitute endorsement of a candidate? Especially when it was specifically mentioned in the sermon that people of good will were supporting both candidates? It's a form of targetting dissent.

Liberal churches have been in the cross hairs of this administration for a while and the response has been to use the government to punish such churches. It happened recently when the government declared that the UCC, the Presbyterian Church, American Baptists and the Disciples were no longer "religious organizations" when it came to travel to Cuba, a status no evangelical church has faced.

I'm not sure how one gets classified as a religious administration when it's only certain religious groups which are favored while others are punished through the mechanisms of government, or at least ignored. While Richard Land of the Southern Baptists was consulted over the supreme court nominations, the Methodist Bishops could never get a hearing with the president over the war. This pattern deserves greater scrutiny then it's received in the past.