The GOP is poised to undo a 63-year-old law protecting a key provision of the separation of church and state, and further endangering LGBT lives.

Longtime gay Republican activist and 2012 presidential candidate Fred Karger has been on a very focused mission: to expose the billions of dollars in tax-free secret profits and the ubiquitous exercise of political power by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS).

Evidence produced by Karger could drive the IRS to investigate possible violations of the LDS tax-exempt status and reveal the Mormon Church’s political history of anti-gay fervor, including the harm done by a 2015 policy change specifically targeting children of same sex parents—which resulted in professionals finally looking at the doubling rate of suicides among LGBT Mormon teens.

“After 40 years and millions of millions of dollars spent by the Mormon Church and its members to disparage LGBT Mormons and take away rights from all LGBT Americans, we are fighting back in a big way,” says Karger, who’s placed national ads in the LGBT and social media promoting a new “Fight Back!” video.

Karger notes, the Mormon Church’s estimated $1 trillion in worldwide business holdings “makes the market value of all the Mormon Church’s businesses greater than that of Apple and ExxonMobil combined! By not paying the appropriate taxes, they are robbing the United States Treasury of billions of dollars each year in lost revenue.”

On his MormonTips.com website, Karger underscores the point, quoting Pope Francis saying: ”A religion is tax-exempt because it is a religion, but if it is functioning more as a business, then it should pay taxes just like its neighbor. Otherwise it is not a fair business.”



personal gain , prompting Walter Shaub, Jr., director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, to resign on Thursday. In his letter of resignation , Shaub said the ethics office was “committed to protecting the principle that, requiring employees to place loyalty to the Constitution, the laws, and ethical principles above private gain.”

Shrug. Trump’s unabashed brazenness has set off a Wild West of self-interest, particularly in Congress where conservative Republicans control both chambers. And while the Establishment GOP leadership fights with the Freedom Caucus over the healthcare bill and other savory ideological items on the GOP menu, the Religious Right is salivating over their sudden power to order whatever they want.

After all, despite having to choke down their presumed moral nausea over Trump’s Access Hollywood tape, white evangelicals turned out for the thrice-married real estate developer big time (by a margin of 80% to 16%) and, as of last April, continue to be his biggest supporters.



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Not everyone supports such a repeal. Representatives from nearly 4,500 tax-exempt organizations sent a letter to congressional leaders in favor of the Johnson Amendment. They pointed out that lifting the ban could create an unscrupulous loophole in campaign disclosure laws since contributions to many nonprofits are secret and tax deductible, creating the temptation to funnel free money to political candidates in the name of religious righteousness.

“A repeal would undermine the sanctity of our religious institutions, increase the flow of dark money in politics and force taxpayers to foot the bill for special interests,” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement April 13.

Tax exemptions are public subsidies, with the vast majority of religious institutions paying no income tax, no corporate tax, no property taxes—no taxes except Social Security taxes on wages. Meanwhile the religious group is afforded taxpayer-provided community benefits such as police and fire protection.

But enforcement of IRS tax-exemption is uneven and unfair, Karger says. For instance, Bob Jones University lost its tax-exempt status in a 1983 landmark case before the U.S. Supreme Court because it refused to allow interracial dating or marriage among students or anyone else associated with the university. The Court ruled that the government’s interest in eliminating racism superseded BJU’s First Amendment right to free speech. Last March, BJU regained its nonprofit status after renouncing its racist policies.

But after the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling granting marriage equality nationwide, the IRS commissioner announced that the federal government agency would not look into the tax-exempt status of any religious institution that opposed marriage equality and refused to comply with the Court’s ruling.

Much of the LGBT community is now focused on efforts by the Christian, Catholic, and Mormon conservatives to impose so-called “religious freedom” laws that enable not only religious organizations but businesses and individuals to legally discriminate against LGBT people as an expression of “religious conscience.”



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Meanwhile, Republicans are delivering for their base of white, Religious Right voters.

Last May, Trump signed an executive order urging the IRS not to enforce the 63-year-old Johnson Amendment that prohibits tax-exempt religious organizations and institutions from endorsing candidates and other blatant partisan politicking from the pulpit. Despite the bluster and the Rose Garden signing ceremony, the “Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty” fell far short of what conservatives had prayed for.

“Religious conservatives will take comfort from the generally positive attitude toward their religious liberty claims. But in its operative effects, this nowhere goes out on a limb for them,” Thomas Berg, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, told Christianity Today. “The issues concerning LGBT/religious-liberty conflicts remain, and this gives little indication Trump will go out on a limb on those.”



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“President Trump is taking a significant first step to defending religious liberty. In working with the Trump administration, it is clear that they both recognize and understand the dangers of the anti-faith policies of the previous administration and are therefore committed to undoing those policies and restoring true religious freedom,” Perkins said in a statement. “No longer will the IRS muzzle the speech of pastors and non-profit organizations and the Department of Justice will address the host of other anti-religious policies and actions launched by the previous administration by issuing guidelines for all federal agencies.”

Having failed to pass an outright repeal, House Republicans maneuvered a sneak attack. On Thursday, June 29, with no chest-beating, attention-grabbing flourish, a House Appropriations subcommittee added a measure to a bill funding the Treasury Department, Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies that cuts money to the IRS for enforcement of the Johnson Amendment.

The measure includes:

– A prohibition on a proposed regulation related to political activities and the tax-exempt status of 501(c)(4) organizations. The proposed regulation could jeopardize the tax-exempt status of many nonprofit organizations and inhibit citizens from exercising their right to freedom of speech;

• A prohibition on funds for the IRS to target groups for regulatory scrutiny based on their ideological beliefs;

• A prohibition on funds for the IRS to target individuals for exercising their First Amendment rights;

• A new prohibition on funds to determine church exemptions unless the IRS Commissioner has consented and Congress has been notified.

“If this goes through, this would add just another way in which unregulated dark money could be used,” Nick Little of the Center for Inquiry told Time.com.

Karger remains undeterred. ”When I found out all the horrors and all the suicides that Mormon Church leaders cause their LGBT members, I knew I had to get involved to help stop this,” Karger says, referring to the November 5, 2015, updated change in Mormon policies and instructions to local leadership that allegedly led to the suicides of 32 young gay Mormons.



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“We’re being contacted at MormonTips.com by hundreds of whistle-blowers sending us tips and sharing information on potential federal, state and local tax code violations by the Mormon Church,” Karger says.

The full Appropriations Committee will mark up the financial services and general government funding bill on Thursday, July 13 starting at 10:00am ET (7:00pm Pacific). The committee is webcasting the proceedings.