Church v. State redux

The not-even-remotely reverend Chan Chandler of the East Waynesville Baptist Church in Waynesville, North Carolina, has resigned. Good for him. One might hope he'd never get another church, but jerks who make it into the public spotlight rarely go away so quietly. I imagine in a few weeks we'll hear that ol' Channy has bought an empty warehouse and begun using it as the First Church of Christ The Republican.

The story doesn't end here, of course. Congressman Walter Jones, of (surprise!) North Carolina, has for the past four sessions submitted a bill relaxing restriction on political speech in churches. Currently, to maintain their tax-exempt status, churches are not permitted to engage in blatantly political activity. Jones, because he was dropped on his head repeatedly as a child, thinks this is a bad idea and wants to change it.

Fortunately, the majority in Congress have thus far seen fit not to pass Jones' bill, possibly because they aren't idiots. This is a theory I'm testing out... but given other recent activities of Congress I'm not sure the theory is going to hold. We can hope, at least, that a majority of Congresspersons will continue to smile politely and walk briskly away whenever they see Jones and his bill coming their way, but just knowing that a person like this is actually in office frightening enough.