SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

my old d.c. office of americans united is hard at work fighting bush's/republican's attempts to make churches political machines for the republican party:

What's different this year is the Bush/Cheney campaign are initiating efforts to get churches to break the law by becoming centers of Bush campaign activity... [my old boss Rev. Barry] Lynn, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ... said he found Bush's recent round of Vatican lobbying... particularly egregious. That, Lynn said, was in sharp contrast with President John Kennedy, the last Roman Catholic to run for president on a major party ticket. Kennedy went out of his way to assure voters that the pope and U.S. bishops would not influence his policies. "It's incredible,'' Lynn said. "Bush is doing the very thing Kennedy vowed not to do. ... It has shocked many people, including many Catholics...

This is the most shocking example of politicizing churches I've ever seen... The last thing this country needs is a church-based political machine. The Bush campaign should abandon this plan immediately. By enrolling churches in an election scheme, the Bush campaign is endangering those churches' tax exemptions... That's bad enough, but the introduction of partisan politics into the pews will also divide congregations and entangle politics and religion in very unhealthy ways.