Johnson Amendment Recalls the "Determined Drive Against Churches"

by Jordan Henry: The Founding Fathers recognized that the U.S. Constitution should not be easily amended. That is why they determined that amendments must pass both houses of Congress and be approved by three-fourths of the state legislatures, the most stringent majority requirement since the Articles of Confederation. This notion of a “living” constitution is a complete non sequitur to the actions taken by the Framers. Because of this great weight placed on the passage of constitutional amendments, there is an equally great weight placed behind the authority of amendments when they are passed. The authority of amendments is paramount to understanding the implications of what the Equal Rights Amendment would have done to the American system of government. Phyllis Schlafly understood this gravity better than most, which equipped her to write about the implications of ERA on religious freedom in the March 1975 Phyllis Schlafly Report.

If ERA had passed, the prohibition of segregation based on sex would have been put at the same level of authority as the First Amendment protection on religious expression. Therefore, religious organizations and schools would be dictated by the Federal Government how they view men and women. As Phyllis put it, “The Equal Rights Amendment is a proposed constitutional amendment which would impose a strict bar on discrimination on the basis of sex, and impose the obligation on the Federal Government to make sure that sex discrimination is eliminated from every facet of our life touched by government.” Churches and synagogues would no longer be able to choose not to ordain women. Single-sex religious schools and colleges would lose their nonprofit status or become illegal altogether, regardless of which gender they catered to. Clearly, the ERA would have led to devastating Federal encroachment into the religious practices of American citizens. Feminists never seemed to mention that religious women were out of luck if their religious convictions did not line up with the feminist agenda.

Federal encroachment on religious expression is the antithesis of traditional American values. The Johnson Amendment is the primary example of this encroachment in our nation today. Originally introduced by then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson in 1954, this law prevents nonprofit organizations with 501(c)3 status from engaging in political activity or speech. While not a constitutional amendment, the Johnson Amendment has been used as a scare tactic for years against churches. Since nearly all religious organizations hold 501(c)3 status, the Johnson Amendment essentially seeks to silence them.

The issue today is not whether religious institutions should be involved in politics. The issue in 1975 was not about whether religious institutions should ordain women or have single-sex schools. Regardless of your personal beliefs on those subjects, we should all be able to agree that the Federal Government has no business regulating places of worship. While most conservatives seem to be in agreement on this fact, liberals cannot keep their positions straight. Where are those advocates of the “separation of church and state” when the state wants to regulate the church? Shouldn’t liberals be the first to want government out of the church house? Unfortunately, liberals do not see separation of church and state as a two-way street. While they are quick to criticize the words “under God” in the pledge or Christmas decorations on public property, they do not care about separating churches from burdensome government regulations that seek to gag them.

People of faith everywhere were delighted to hear then-candidate Donald Trump assuage the fears of religious conservatives by promising to get rid of the Johnson Amendment once and for all. At the National Prayer Breakfast on February 2, 2017, President Trump repeated his promise to “get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment.” By realizing this goal, President Trump will make an incredible step in the fight to restore this nation to its constitutional foundation of free religious expression. If the Johnson Amendment could so devastate the faith community as an amendment to a law, one can only imagine the devastation that the Equal Rights Amendment could have done as a part of the U.S. Constitution. We should never forget the incredible service Phyllis Schlafly did for people of faith by seeing to the demise of ERA.
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Jordan T. Henry is Research Director at Phyllis Schlafly Eagles

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Tags: Equal Rights Amendment, First Amendment, Freedom of Religion, PSR50, Religious Liberty, Johnson Amendment, Determined Drive Against Churches, Jordan Henry, Phyllis Schlafly, Phyllis Schlafly Eagles To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!