Our Threatened Freedom

Has the First Amendment Been Nullified

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: 3-169

Genre: Conversation

Track: 003

Dictation Name: Vol. A – Part 03 – Has the First Amendment Been Nullified

Location/Venue: Unknown

Year: 1980’s – 1990’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Has the First Amendment been nullified? This is R.J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.

Has the First Amendment been rendered null and void by the 16th, or income tax, Amendment?

Federal and state authorities are ready to argue that this is in fact the case. Listen to what the state of California franchise tax board wrote to pastor Harry Jackson of Calvary Baptist Church in Fairfield California, November 5, 1979. Quote, “The 16th Amendment authorizes Congress to levy a tax on income. There is no exclusion for churches, so they have no constitutional exemption. There is a provision in the Internal Revenue code for a statuary exemption. The state constitution is subservient to the federal constitution, so the above applies for state purposes. Article 13, sections 26 and 27 provide for the income and franchised tax, but it contains no provision for exemption for churches. Again the exemption from state income tax is provided by state statute, not by the Constitution. For state purposes, the statute is section 23701D of the revenue and taxation code. As shown by the fact stated above, neither the federal nor state constitution provides for exemption from income tax for churches.” Unquote.

Consider what it means to say that the churches have no constitutional exemption from income and other taxes, only a statutory one. The life of the church is then placed in the hands of the IRS and like agencies. And its freedom can be revoked at the will of a bureaucracy.

This is not an academic question.

Pastor Harry Jackson’s church, and about 60 others, had their tax exemptions revoked. With many of them, it began with their stand on a state proposition concerning homosexuality. This supposedly violated a bureaucratic form requiring no stand by churches on ballot measures, and their tax exemptions were revoked, because they could not in good conscience sign form 199B. This meant that these churches could then be sold for back taxes, which they were refusing to pay on constitutional grounds.

The only thing unusual about this case is that you did not read about it in the press. This should not surprise us. Many such cases go unpublicized. No civil government gives publicity to the fact that it is taking over churches or taking away our liberties. Nor does a subservient press herald such facts either.

If the 16th Amendment can be said to have wiped out the constitutional immunity of churches to taxation, it is easy enough to find in some other amendment or law, reasons for curtailing freedom of speech, press, assembly, petition, and more. You can be sure that it is being done, and that one area after another, our freedom is rapidly disappearing. The founding fathers saw civil government as a dangerous power, to be chained and restrained. We have been unchaining that power and feeding it. Feeding it with more and more taxes, and now we are in trouble. The choice is before us. Freedom, or controls?