WASHINGTON (ABP) — Outspoken California pastor and former Southern Baptist Convention officer Wiley Drake is being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service.
The candidate for the SBC presidency this year is under scrutiny for using his church letterhead and church-sponsored radio show last year to endorse Mike Huckabee. Joe Conn and Jeremy Leaming — alive and well after Drake called God's wrath against them for criticizing his endorsement — work at the religious-liberty agency that filed an IRS complaint that prompted the investigation.
After Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced their IRS filing in August, Drake asked his supporters to pray for ill to befall Conn and Leaming. The two are communications staffers for the agency.
Drake confirmed Feb. 14 that he had recently received an IRS letter noting he was under investigation for using church resources to endorse Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, Southern Baptist minister and Republican presidential candidate. Federal tax law prevents churches and similarly organized non-profit groups from endorsing candidates or political parties.
Drake, pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, Calif., made the endorsements last August. “After very serious prayer and consideration, I announce today that I am going to personally endorse Mike Huckabee,” he said in the press release printed on church letterhead. “I ask all of my Southern Baptist brothers and sisters to consider getting behind Mike and helping him all you can.”
He said he believes “God has chosen Mike for such an hour,” and that of all the candidates running for president, “Mike Huckabee will listen to God.”
Shortly after he released the written statement, Drake also endorsed Huckabee on an Internet-based radio show the church sponsors.
“Yes, I endorsed him personally and, yes, we use the First Southern Baptist Church,” Drake said on the show. “Everything we do is under the auspices of the church.”
The Americans United complaint to the IRS mentioned both forms of endorsement. The IRS letter to Drake also mentioned both the press release and the radio show.
Drake, reached by telephone Feb. 14, referred a reporter to his attorney. “Because I have retained legal counsel and they've told me, ‘Don't talk to the press,' I have to abide by that,” he said.
The attorney, Erik Stanley, did not return a telephone message by press time for this story. But he told the Associated Press that Drake did not violate federal tax law by endorsing Huckabee because it was a personal endorsement, not done on behalf of the church.
“Our position on this is that … churches and pastors have First Amendment rights just like anybody else, and that includes the right to speak out,” he said. “They can feel free to personally endorse candidates. It was not a church endorsement, and he made that very clear.”
Stanley is representing Drake on behalf of the Alliance Defense Fund. The group is a national network of attorneys who often offer legal defense of individuals and causes supported by the Religious Right.
In recent years, some religious conservatives have tried unsuccessfully to undo the tax laws that prevent churches from endorsing candidates or parties while retaining their tax-exempt status. Opponents of such efforts claim the prohibition actually upholds religious freedom by protecting houses of worship and denominational bodies from being used by candidates and parties.
In August, after Americans United announced their complaint, Drake told the Los Angeles Times that he wasn't worried about federal tax regulators. “They don't scare me,” he said. “I don't give a rip about the IRS. I don't believe in the separation of church and state, and I believe the IRS should stay out of church business.”
The letterhead Drake used both to endorse Huckabee and to call for God's wrath against Conn and Leaming also mentioned his previous position as second vice president of the SBC. He held that office from June 2006 to June 2007. He has announced that he will run for president of the nation's largest Protestant denomination this year.