Did you check out the article about the Pasadena church under siege from the IRS (see below)? Does anyone believe it's not politically motivated?

I apologize to anyone who was disappointed not to find something here to read. I swear it was here when I posted it, or thought I did. Do you get the feeling that I don't know what I'm doing?

Anyway, please do look at the L.A. Times article DWT posted on the heat being applied by the IRS to Pasadena's All Saints Church, which sure had me bouncing off the walls. Note that the church's tax attorney, Marcus Owens, is a former head of the IRS's tax-exempt section and seems confident that the church has remained within IRS rules. But is he perhaps just being professionally tactful with this amazingly charitable assessment of the IRS's behavior?

"'I doubt it's politically motivated,' Owens said. 'I think it is more a case of senior management at IRS not paying attention to what the rules are.'

"According to Owens, six years ago the IRS used to send about 20 such letters to churches a year. That number has increased sharply because of the agency's recent delegation of audit authority to agents on the front lines, he said.

"He knew of two other churches, both critical of government policies, that had received similar letters, Owens said.

"It's unclear how often the IRS raises questions about the tax-exempt status of churches."

A European friend of mine occasionally registers astonishment that we in the U.S. make no attempt to regulate what constitutes a legitimate religion, to which I point out that it's part of our tradition of religious tolerance. Americans have generally been reluctant to pass judgment on the validity of other people's religions, in part because, after all, what criteria would we use? But then I'll point out to my friend that in extreme cases the IRS has the power to yank a group's tax exemption.

And yet here we are. With hundreds if not thousands of rightward-screeching churches across the country freely flouting the ban on intervening in elections, as DWT notes, who is the IRS going after? A few churches that strive to scrupulously observe the rules but are known for their socially liberal leanings.

I wonder how I'm going to argue the case the next time the subject of "regulating" religion comes up with my friend.