Lunch Date With God

What do you do when a complaint has been filed against you with the IRS? Well, if you're the Rev Robin Parsley, you flaunt the fact that you are violating the law by holding a luncheon to promote the exact thing for which the complaint was filed. From the Columbus Dispatch:

Republican gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell told conservative religious leaders yesterday not to be deterred from political participation by a federal complaint filed by 31 Columbus-area pastors.

"You tell those 31 bullies that you aren’t about to be whupped," said Blackwell, the secretary of state, who said that "political and social and cultural forces are trying to run God out of the public square."

Blackwell was the only candidate for governor invited to address 450 pastors and Christian conservatives at a luncheon north of Canton sponsored by the Ohio Restoration Project two days after it and several allied religious entities were accused of illegally engaging in partisan politics.

You can count me in as one of those trying to run God out of not so much the public square, but our government. I really don't care if somebody sets up a nativity scene, or menorah, or whatever on public grounds as long as all religions are granted equal access and it stays outside the building. I object when these guys think that their God should be installed in our schools, courts, and other government entities. You know, that whole separation of church and state, etc.

It's also important to remember that all these churches have to do to have full participation in the political process is to give up their tax exempt status. But that would knock a little bit of the sparkle off the opulence that is the House of Big Box Jesus, wouldn't it Robin?