The byline of Bob Unruh on a WorldNetDaily article pretty much guarantees a biased, one-sided view of whatever he’s writing about, while ignoring inconvenient facts that conflict with his far-right Christian worldview.
And so it is with Unruh’s Aug. 17 WND article designed to fearmonger about a long-existing law that prohibits ministers from making partisan political endorsements from the pulpit:
Imagine uttering the words “pro-life” in your church and finding yourself targeted by an investigation from the feared and reviled Internal Revenue Service.
An expert on the First Amendment conflict between pastors and the federal agency, which says it is investigating speech delivered from pulpits, confirms that’s possible.
As per usual with Unruh, he quotes only right-wing sources who are all to happy to join in the fearmongering, and he makes no effort to talk to anyone at the IRS about the regulation.
And it’s not until the final paragraph that Unruh concedes, although somewhat obliquely, that the regulation in question has existed since 1954. Which means that, far from imposing new impositions, the agreement the IRS made with the Freedom From Religion Foundation is about enforcing existing law. As the FFRF has pointed out, the IRS has not been enforcing the regulation (known as the Johnson amendment) with regard to churches.
Even though the FFRF press release can be easily found on the Internet, Unruh couldn’t lift a finger to find it and quote from it to provide some semblance of balance to his article. But then, WND isn’t paying him to be fair and balanced.