New Congress should guarantee faith leaders freedom of speech

By Kevin Fobbs

In 2007 a new Congress has an opportunity to erase a law that has paralyzed faith leaders for over 50 years. In 1954 while the U.S. Supreme Court was using the historic "Brown v Board of Education" guaranteeing Blacks their basic U.S. Constitutional rights, then-Congressman Lyndon Baines Johnson, the future President of the United States, was initiating a law that would strip hundreds of thousands of religious leaders and their brothers and sisters in faith of the U.S. Constitutional Right to Freedom of Speech and thereby sentence them to self-imposed silence on political and moral issues of the day.

This one act of well-targeted political hubris literally paralyzed ministers under threat of possibly losing their churches if they spoke out from their pulpit about touchy political issues, hot social issues, or volatile moral issues of the day.

It did not matter that this was a right ministers had enjoyed since before the formation of our nation. Government restrictions and decrees had been a core reason for faith leaders to flee England to pursue their God-given right to worship, to speak the gospel and to preach on any and all issues of the day.

Now a new Congress has the opportunity to put an end to this tragic legacy of Lyndon Baines Johnson that has frozen free speech from the pulpit. The nation needs a "House of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act" bill as a Constitutional protected right for ministers of faith. My minister or your minister, rabbi, priest or religious leader should have their First Amendment rights restored. That should be a no-brainer.

You've sat in your pew and watched your minister having to carefully craft the sermon so as to not step over the line that restricted him from saying what the spirit of God was telling him. For over 50 years a minister who wanted to speak out on Sunday morning against the issues of the day be it to hold a wayward political figure responsible for his or her stands on moral issues or an elected official who had abandoned the faith in pursuit of temporary political gain.

With the advent of the abortion movement of the 1960s our pastors had to stand in absolute silence while millions of babies were being offered up as victims. It did not matter what the minister's intent was in wanting to speak out because always somewhere in the back of their minds, many had to be feeling the cloaked tug of the government — the ever-present silent editor of their sermons, the red ink specialist with the invisible pen who would erase whole passages... for fear.

Yes fear of daring to speak and preach and teach and empower the flock freely has stymied them. This is a freedom you or I could exercise freely from within the walls of the house of worship or outside in the public square but right has been stolen from the spiritual arsenal of leaders of faith.

A house of worship should be a protected place. It should be a safe haven as free from the reach of government as the very sanctity of our Constitution that was crafted to insure at the founding moment of our nation — the true purpose of the separation of church and state.

As Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said so eloquently over 40 years ago, "Now is the time to release our spiritual dreamers to be able to share their dreams" with all of their flock without the government watching and listening and possibly taking notes.

Now is the time to allow our leaders of faith the ability to stand boldly in their pulpits and announce to the world with the power that God gave them to speak freely about the banning of partial-birth abortion, to call the church to action to protect the solemn oath of marriage between a man and a woman, and the marshaling of the forces of faith to make certain God and his Ten Commandments are kept in our public places so that our children and their children and their children's children will inherit our nation's foundational values and principles.

A Constitutional "House of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act" to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 will protect the free religious exercise and free speech rights of churches and other houses of worship. It should be should be examined and debated as one of the first orders of business for the new Congress because one would think that even our congressional representatives would want to see their pastors and their faith leaders free from this unearned undeserved verbal bondage.

Passage and adoption of this Bill will allow every faith-based ministry in this nation to be free to speak its mind, lead from the heart, and share the spirit of the day on any issue of the day including political and moral issues without fear of financial repercussion or that the house of worship will be shut down. If that logic doesn't make sense, just take a look at our northern neighbors — some faith leaders in Canada are now facing these kinds of sanctions if they dare to speak out against same-sex marriage or against abortion.

Is this not the original intent of the framers of our Constitution? Is this not what you expect from your minister, to provide counsel, to provide a moral answer for you and for your family? Those who fear that by releasing ministers to stand in their pulpit fully armed because they think this original right will be somehow distorted, misused, and abused by the faith certainly do not understand history or our country. Free speech in the pulpit should never be enslaved, or held hostage to political whim and mischief.

What a wonderful gift to celebrate next year at this time when we see a return of our Sundays and Saturdays to our leaders of faith, fully protected with the right to exercise religious freedom of speech that they enjoyed before 1954.

A "House of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act" bill — it must be done for God's sake and our nations' sake as well.

© Kevin Fobbs