Conservative evangelical leaders hope that 1,500 pastors will take part in \u201cPulpit Freedom Sunday\u201d on October 7 and tell their congregants that they must vote against President Obama and other \u201cunbiblical\u201d candidates. Today, publisher Steven Strang, anti-gay activist Rev. Jim Garlow, and too-radical-for-John-McCain pastor John Hagee participated in a conference call designed to either shame or inspire more pastors to take part.<\/p>\n
One context for the Pulpit Freedom Sunday project, which has been growing over the past decade, is the fervent belief among religious right leaders that America would not be such a cesspool of abortion, homosexuality, and secularism if only more pastors had the courage to speak freely from the pulpit. Too many pastors are being intimidated, they believe, by restrictions against political endorsements by tax-exempt nonprofits (501c3 groups in IRS lingo) which includes churches. Garlow said the day in 1954 when the \u201cJohnson amendment\u201d language was put into the tax code was the day that \u201cchanged America\u201d and set the stage for bad Supreme Court decisions and everything else that has gone wrong since the 1960s.<\/p>\n