On Day Three of the fight over a GOP plan to let churches work with and for political campaigns of their choosing without penalty, a funny thing happened: the right started hating it.
Almost immediately after the idea became public, Dems and the left criticized the plan, recognizing it as a thinly-veiled response to the Bush campaign’s drive to use churches as part of a political machine in the fall. Given the circumstances, though, their opposition was expected.
Today, however, the Washington Post noted that conservatives aren’t backing the plan either.
A proposed change in tax laws that was intended to give religious leaders more freedom to engage in partisan politics appeared to be losing support in Congress yesterday after it came under fire from both liberal and conservative religious groups.
The Southern Baptist Convention, which supports the broad goal of the legislation, sent House members a letter opposing the specific language that House Republican leaders last week tacked onto a major tax bill, the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004.
The Rev. Richard D. Land, head of the convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said the language is “loose enough that it could be interpreted to broaden the restrictions” on political speech by clergy members, rather than loosening them. “This is a case in which the cure is worse than the disease,” Land said.
[…]
Mike Stokke, Hastert’s deputy chief of staff, said the speaker’s office had heard from a growing number of clergy who questioned the specifics of the proposal.
The left thinks it goes to far; the right thinks it doesn’t go far enough. As a result, almost no one is backing the darn thing.
Just as well. It’s a dumb idea.