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Church-state line blurs leading up to election

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OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — While politicians and pastors alike have recognized a large block of voters among the ranks of American churchgoers, both conservatives and liberals are approaching with caution.

According to the Associated Press, the Mainstream Coalition, an advocacy group for separation of church and state, plans to send volunteers to area church services to make sure there's no election-year campaigning from the pulpit.

The Coalition, headed by Caroline McKnight, is sending letters to more than 400 churches in the area reminding them of IRS rules, which forbid tax-exempt groups including religious organizations from participating in political campaigns for or against candidates.

The issue came to the forefront in May after several prominent Kansas ministers declared they would rally their congregations to defeat members of the Kansas House who opposed the referendum on a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

The Rev. Jerry Johnston urged about 100 ministers at a June meeting at his 3,000-member First Family Church in Overland Park to help oust targeted lawmakers by registering 100,000 new voters.

Meanwhile, Southern Baptists are upset over requests from the Bush-Cheney campaign that seem to ask too much of their 501c3 electorate.

According to Agape Press, while evangelical churches may favor the politically conservative, the Bush-Cheney campaign’s request for volunteers to share information from their church directories stepped over the line.

Kenyn Cureton, pastor of First Baptist Church of Lebanon, Tenn., said that although he supports George W. Bush, the request from the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign was inappropriate and put churches in an awkward situation.

"The danger is jeopardizing the 501c3 status of a church," Cureton said.

SBC church-state specialist, Richard Land, also opposed the requests from the Bush-Cheney campaign.

"I’m appalled that the Bush-Cheney campaign would intrude on a local congregation in this way," said Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "It’s one thing for the church to have a voter registration drive, to seek to inform church members on public policy issues, to encourage church members to fulfill their Christian duty and vote, and to encourage them to vote their values, beliefs and convictions. It’s another thing entirely for a partisan campaign to ask church members to bring in church directories for use as contact lists by the campaign and to seek to come into the church and do a voter registration drive and distribute campaign literature."

The Bush-Cheney campaign defended the effort.

"By no means are we calling on people to conduct political activity at their places of worship," campaign spokesperson Sharon Castillo told Baptist Press. "Our approach is peer-to-peer contact.

"We believe that people of faith have the right to engage in the political process," she said. "We are just trying to engage more of our fellow citizens in the political process."