Jacob Lupfer: Religious right groups’ tax-status changes demean both church and state

((Jacob Lupfer is a writer in Jacksonville, Florida.) The Family Research Council, a conservative Christian think tank based in Washington, is the latest right-leaning organization to seek and receive a designation from the IRS classifying it as an association of churches. This move shields these political groups from even the most basic public scrutiny and insults others in the faith landscape who follow the spirit of the law. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse, both headed by Franklin Graham, have also employed the strategy, as have the hard-right legal nonprofit Liberty Counsel and the American Family Association. ProPublica, the pro-transparency news nonprofit, reported this week that the FRC and its overtly political arm, FRC Action, no longer have to file Form 990, the standard IRS disclosure that offers basic information about a tax-exempt nonprofit’s key donors, expenditures and staff. It also gives some assurance a group is honoring the limits on political activity Congress has placed on organizations whose donors receive a tax write-off.

Scholars and reporters (and some members of the public) rely on these disclosures to understand, study and monitor how politically active nonprofits are funded and what they do with their expansive liberties to advocate for their values in the public square tax-free. Ostensibly founded to promote social conservatism, the Family Research Council’s practical purpose is to keep Christians in the Republican coalition — a challenge, admittedly, of late as GOP candidates, rhetoric and tactics become more un-Christian in the age of Trump. But FRC has risen to the occasion. After Trump lost the 2020 election, FRC’s president, Tony Perkins, recklessly advanced the lie that Joe Biden lost and that Republican state legislators could lawfully dismiss the electoral results. Perkins, a former Louisiana state representative and longtime anti-gay and anti-abortion advocate, has done some good work with the bipartisan United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. But his day job has long been as a political hack and wannabe Republican kingmaker, which expanded during the last administration to serving as an occasional confidant of Trump’s. We’re increasingly familiar with the challenges to personal integrity that role requires.