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Erik Stanley: The Johnson Amendment is a ?fat opossum?

By Alliance Alert

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: "[At a recent CLE presentation] I spoke on the history of the Johnson Amendment and how Lyndon Johnson got his amendment to the tax code passed with no legislative analysis, no committee hearings, and no debate. After the presentation, a professor at a local university told me that in West Virginia, what Johnson did with his amendment to the tax code would have been called a 'fat opossum' because it snuck through under cover of darkness. That?s a perfect tag line for the Johnson Amendment . . . It was a bill that got inserted into the tax code through back-room deals made by a powerful Senator who wanted to be able to seek reelection at any cost and, in the process, trampling freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion. We have grown up with a generation of chuch-goers that believe it is illegal for their pastor to address candidates and elections in light of Scripture or church doctrine when there is no valid justification for believing that."

Full post as published by Constitutionally Correct on June 10, 2010 (boomark / email).