{"id":47,"date":"2008-09-12T09:52:36","date_gmt":"2008-09-12T09:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/freedom-of-religion-is-absolut.html"},"modified":"2008-09-12T09:52:36","modified_gmt":"2008-09-12T09:52:36","slug":"freedom-of-religion-is-absolut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/freedom-of-religion-is-absolut.html","title":{"rendered":"Freedom of Religion Is Absolutely Protected; Fraud Not So Much"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta name=\"ProgId\" content=\"Word.Document\"><meta name=\"Generator\" content=\"Microsoft Word 11\"><meta name=\"Originator\" content=\"Microsoft Word 11\"><link rel=\"File-List\" href=\"file:\/\/\/C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Cbathija%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml\"><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags\" name=\"State\"><\/o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags\" name=\"place\"><\/o:smarttagtype><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument>  <w:View>Normal<\/w:View>  <w:Zoom>0<\/w:Zoom>  <w:PunctuationKerning\/>  <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas\/>  <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false<\/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>  <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false<\/w:IgnoreMixedContent>  <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false<\/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>  <w:Compatibility>   <w:BreakWrappedTables\/>   <w:SnapToGridInCell\/>   <w:WrapTextWithPunct\/>   <w:UseAsianBreakRules\/>   <w:DontGrowAutofit\/>  <\/w:Compatibility>  <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4<\/w:BrowserLevel> <\/w:WordDocument><\/xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState=\"false\" LatentStyleCount=\"156\"> <\/w:LatentStyles><\/xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid=\"clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D\" id=\"ieooui\"><\/object>\n\n<style>st1\\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }<\/style>\n\n<![endif]--><\/p>\n<style><!-- \/* Style Definitions *\/ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal\t{mso-style-parent:\"\";\tmargin:0in;\tmargin-bottom:.0001pt;\tmso-pagination:widow-orphan;\tfont-size:12.0pt;\tfont-family:\"Times New Roman\";\tmso-fareast-font-family:\"Times New Roman\";}@page Section1\t{size:8.5in 11.0in;\tmargin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;\tmso-header-margin:.5in;\tmso-footer-margin:.5in;\tmso-paper-source:0;}div.Section1\t{page:Section1;}--><\/style>\n<p><!--[if gte mso 10]>\n\n<style> \/* Style Definitions *\/ table.MsoNormalTable\t{mso-style-name:\"Table Normal\";\tmso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;\tmso-tstyle-colband-size:0;\tmso-style-noshow:yes;\tmso-style-parent:\"\";\tmso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;\tmso-para-margin:0in;\tmso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;\tmso-pagination:widow-orphan;\tfont-size:10.0pt;\tfont-family:\"Times New Roman\";\tmso-ansi-language:#0400;\tmso-fareast-language:#0400;\tmso-bidi-language:#0400;}<\/style>\n\n<![endif]--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in;\">We both know that law enforcement officials can investigate&#8221;fraud&#8221; without passing new laws against specific activities like reading Tarotcards.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>In fact back in l944 the SupremeCourt allowed the Postal Service to investigate something called the &#8220;I Am&#8221;movement that was soliciting funds through the mail.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>The Court noted, quite sensibly, that if a&#8221;religion&#8221; was actually set up to bilk people, it had no absolute FirstAmendment protection.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>In other words,you can accept money for beliefs that are new, or sound strange to others, butyou better believe them yourself.<o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in;\"><o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in;\"><o:p><\/o:p>It was a nice try to link this tothe ongoing investigation by Republican Senator Charles Grassley of <st1:state w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Iowa<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> of the finances ofsome &#8220;prosperity gospel&#8221; television preachers including Creflo Dollar andKenneth Copeland.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>There is of course ahuge difference between the issues.<span style=\"\">&nbsp;<\/span>Senator Grassley is not trying to ban people from &#8220;preaching&#8221; that &#8220;godlinesswill get you wealthiness.&#8221;<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>He was merelyasking these ministries to provide enough financial data to be sure theyweren&#8217;t running afoul of IRS rules against setting up religious groups forpersonal benefit.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>He has every right todo so.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>If, and I emphasize if, some ofthese groups should be paying taxes and are not, it just means the rest of ushave to pay more.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in;\">By the way, I know &#8220;wealthiness&#8221; isnot a real word, but neither was &#8220;truthiness&#8221; until we got Steven Colbert!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We both know that law enforcement officials can investigate&#8221;fraud&#8221; without passing new laws against specific activities like reading Tarotcards.&nbsp; In fact back in l944 the SupremeCourt allowed the Postal Service to investigate something called the &#8220;I Am&#8221;movement that was soliciting funds through the mail.&nbsp; The Court noted, quite sensibly, that if a&#8221;religion&#8221; was actually set&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[20,21],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religious-freedom","category-the-states","tag-fortunetelling","tag-fraud"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Freedom of Religion Is Absolutely Protected; Fraud Not So Much - Lynn v. Sekulow<\/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\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/freedom-of-religion-is-absolut.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Freedom of Religion Is Absolutely Protected; Fraud Not So Much - Lynn v. Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We both know that law enforcement officials can investigate&#8221;fraud&#8221; without passing new laws against specific activities like reading Tarotcards.&nbsp; In fact back in l944 the SupremeCourt allowed the Postal Service to investigate something called the &#8220;I Am&#8221;movement that was soliciting funds through the mail.&nbsp; The Court noted, quite sensibly, that if a&#8221;religion&#8221; was actually set&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/freedom-of-religion-is-absolut.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lynn v. Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-09-12T09:52:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rev. Barry W. Lynn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Freedom of Religion Is Absolutely Protected; Fraud Not So Much - Lynn v. Sekulow","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\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/freedom-of-religion-is-absolut.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Freedom of Religion Is Absolutely Protected; Fraud Not So Much - Lynn v. Sekulow","og_description":"We both know that law enforcement officials can investigate&#8221;fraud&#8221; without passing new laws against specific activities like reading Tarotcards.&nbsp; In fact back in l944 the SupremeCourt allowed the Postal Service to investigate something called the &#8220;I Am&#8221;movement that was soliciting funds through the mail.&nbsp; The Court noted, quite sensibly, that if a&#8221;religion&#8221; was actually set&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/freedom-of-religion-is-absolut.html","og_site_name":"Lynn v. Sekulow","article_published_time":"2008-09-12T09:52:36+00:00","author":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/freedom-of-religion-is-absolut.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/freedom-of-religion-is-absolut.html","name":"Freedom of Religion Is Absolutely Protected; Fraud Not So Much - Lynn v. Sekulow","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-09-12T09:52:36+00:00","dateModified":"2008-09-12T09:52:36+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/98ebaf547801cce8ce6fff4c27f51fc8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/freedom-of-religion-is-absolut.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/freedom-of-religion-is-absolut.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/freedom-of-religion-is-absolut.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Freedom of Religion Is Absolutely Protected; Fraud Not So Much"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/","name":"Lynn v. Sekulow","description":"A debate blog about church, state, faith and politics with Jay Sekulow and Barry W. Lynn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/?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\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/98ebaf547801cce8ce6fff4c27f51fc8","name":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","caption":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn"},"description":"Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution's religious liberty provisions (www.au.org). In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues. An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}