WASHINGTON (ABP) — Americans United for Separation of Church and State has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate whether Oct. 29 remarks by Michelle Obama to an African-American Baptist gathering violated federal tax law.
According to media reports, the wife of the Democratic presidential candidate told about 1,000 delegates to the General Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, meeting in Fayetteville, that her husband understands the struggles of working families and offers the leadership America needs.
“Don’t we deserve a president with that perspective, someone who knows first-hand the heartbreak caused by a broken health care system and is determined to fix it?” she asked, according to the Fayetteville Observer. “Don’t we deserve a leader who gets it? Well, Barack Obama gets it.”
“I come here today as a Christian, a person of faith who believes we’ve all been called to serve our fellow men and woman and honor all of God’s creation,” she said, according to the Associated Press. “I also come here as a wife who loves my husband, and I believe my husband will be an extraordinary president.”
Barry Lynn, president of the Washington-based Americans United, said the speech was inappropriate for a tax-exempt religious group.
“This was an Obama campaign rally taking place during the meeting of a religious group,” Lynn said. “Federal tax law simply does not allow religious organizations to sponsor events like this.”
Federal tax law permits 501(c) (3) tax-exempt charities to invite political speakers for non-political purposes, but bans churches and other religious groups from endorsing candidates. In an Oct. 30 letter to the IRS, Lynn said the appearance by the candidate’s wife “appeared very similar” to the sort of campaign appearance upon which the tax code frowns.
“In short, I believe this appearance by Ms. Obama before this religious group raises a host of issues, and I urge the IRS to investigate the matter,” Lynn wrote.
In February the IRS launched an investigation into Sen. Barack Obama’s 2007 address to the General Synod of the United Church of Christ. In May the agency ruled that Obama’s speech — agreed to before he had announced his presidential candidacy and addressed to members of his own denomination — did not qualify as a political speech.
About the same time the IRS ruled that former Southern Baptist Convention vice president Wiley Drake’s use of his California church’s resources to endorse Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee also was not “prohibited political campaign intervention.”
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