On Sunday, October 7, pastors around the country will try to bait the federal government into investigating them by preaching explicitly partisan sermons. As part of a conservative movement organizers call “Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” some religious leaders will endorse Mitt Romney from the pulpit. Others may refrain from an endorsement but vigorously criticize President Obama. And some will tell their congregations that a good Christian can only vote for a candidate who opposes gay marriage and abortion. Then they’ll send tapes of their sermons to the Internal Revenue Service in the hopes of being audited.

The point of this exercise—now in its fifth year—is twofold. Federal law prohibits tax-exempt organizations from participating in partisan politicking, and conservative activists want to invite an investigation by the IRS so they can challenge the law in court. And if an audit of churches by the IRS provides fuel for the charge that the Obama administration is waging a war on religion, then all the better.

(The law—which is known as the Johnson Amendment because it was introduced by then-Senator Lyndon Johnson in 1954—applies to all tax-exempt organizations, including secular non-profits. But those who hope to challenge the law are almost uniformly Christian and politically conservative. So I’ll occasionally use the shorthand of “churches” instead of “houses of worship.”)

Supporters of Pulpit Freedom Sunday argue that current law violates religious liberty and free speech by placing restrictions on what religious leaders can say. Jim Garlow, who pastors Skyline Church in California, is one of the most outspoken activists on this issue. He recently appeared on Mike Huckabee’s Fox News show to charge that the law imposes a “muzzle on churches.” Glenn Beck, who has trumpeted the Pulpit Freedom cause in the past few years, held a tele-conference on Tuesday night that was sponsored by CatholicVote.org. According to a Commonweal magazine reporter who was on the call, Beck said there should be no limits on what priests and other religious leaders can say about politics, telling listeners: “If priests can’t speak out on public issues, then what’s the Church good for?”

Let’s consider this claim. In order to believe that churches are being censored by the government, you have to accept that religious organizations have not only the right to engage in partisan speech and activities but also the right to be exempt from federal taxes and the right to accept donations that are tax-deductible. There simply is no constitutional right that covers the latter. The tax-exempt status for churches is a monetary benefit given to them by the government, as is the rule allowing individuals to deduct their contributions to religious organizations.