{"id":350,"date":"2008-02-14T15:08:28","date_gmt":"2008-02-14T15:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/2008\/02\/irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto.html"},"modified":"2008-02-14T15:08:28","modified_gmt":"2008-02-14T15:08:28","slug":"irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto.html","title":{"rendered":"IRS Investigates Pro-Huck Pastor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"huck.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/211\/import\/huck.jpg\" width=\"128\" \/>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.arkansasonline.com\/blogs\/bible-blog\/2008\/feb\/13\/southern-bcv\/\">Associated Press<\/a> reports that the IRS is investigating a California-based Baptist pastor who is backing Mike Huckabee for possibly violating its rules against official church endorsements of candidates. God-o-Meter will give the pastor the benefit of the doubt, but might not have Huckabee encouraged pastors to violate IRS rules, in that he&#8217;s campaigning in pulpits across the nation, relies on church-based organizing networks for support, and has looked to pastors <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/2008\/01\/preachers-pony-up-for-huck.html\">as a source of campaign revenue<\/a>?<br \/>\nDetails from the AP:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Southern Baptist pastor Wiley Drake said Wednesday that he is being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service for his endorsement of GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee in a press release written on church stationery.<br \/>\nUnder federal tax law, church officials may legally discuss politics, but they cannot endorse candidates or parties in their official capacity as a minister without putting their tax-exempt status at risk&#8230;.<br \/>\n&#8220;After very serious prayer and consideration, I announce today that I am going to personally endorse Mike Huckabee,&#8221; the release said. &#8220;I ask all of my Southern Baptist brothers and sister to consider getting behind Mike and helping him all you can.&#8221;<br \/>\nHe added: &#8220;I believe God has chosen Mike for such an hour, and I believe of all those running Mike Huckabee will listen to God.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8230;. A complaint was filed with the IRS by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Associated Press reports that the IRS is investigating a California-based Baptist pastor who is backing Mike Huckabee for possibly violating its rules against official church endorsements of candidates. God-o-Meter will give the pastor the benefit of the doubt, but might not have Huckabee encouraged pastors to violate IRS rules, in that he&#8217;s campaigning in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mike-huckabee"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>IRS Investigates Pro-Huck Pastor - God-O-Meter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"IRS Investigates Pro-Huck Pastor - God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Associated Press reports that the IRS is investigating a California-based Baptist pastor who is backing Mike Huckabee for possibly violating its rules against official church endorsements of candidates. God-o-Meter will give the pastor the benefit of the doubt, but might not have Huckabee encouraged pastors to violate IRS rules, in that he&#8217;s campaigning in&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-02-14T15:08:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/huck.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dgilgoff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"IRS Investigates Pro-Huck Pastor - God-O-Meter","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"IRS Investigates Pro-Huck Pastor - God-O-Meter","og_description":"The Associated Press reports that the IRS is investigating a California-based Baptist pastor who is backing Mike Huckabee for possibly violating its rules against official church endorsements of candidates. God-o-Meter will give the pastor the benefit of the doubt, but might not have Huckabee encouraged pastors to violate IRS rules, in that he&#8217;s campaigning in&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto.html","og_site_name":"God-O-Meter","article_published_time":"2008-02-14T15:08:28+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/huck.jpg"}],"author":"dgilgoff","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto.html","name":"IRS Investigates Pro-Huck Pastor - God-O-Meter","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/huck.jpg","datePublished":"2008-02-14T15:08:28+00:00","dateModified":"2008-02-14T15:08:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/huck.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/huck.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2008\/02\/irs-investigates-prohuck-pasto.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"IRS Investigates Pro-Huck Pastor"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/","name":"God-O-Meter","description":"A scientific measure of God-talk in the elections","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4","name":"dgilgoff","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","caption":"dgilgoff"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/author\/dgilgoff"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}