Fidelis

Originally Posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Sixty-two

In last week's post I discussed how the Catholic Right organization Fidelis may be possibly violating IRS proscriptions against electioneering by non-profit, tax-exempt organizations. This week we take a closer look at one of its principle figures -- attorney Patrick T. Gillen. Although not exactly a household name, Gillen has been in the middle of many of the religious right's biggest court battles in recent years.

A Googling of Gillen reveals, among other things, that he is a visiting faculty member at Ave Maria Law School as well as the former chief litigator for the Thomas More Law Center.

As I wrote previously of TMLC:

TMLC makes no bones that its members are engaged in a culture war against the supposedly ungodly:

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Catholic Right, Part Sixty-one

A little more than a year ago Fidelis, an umbrella advocacy group consisting of various not-for-profit entities, sought to derail the presidential prospects of pro-choice Republican (and Catholic) Rudy Giuliani. It is now going after presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama (the junior senator from Illinois is also pro-choice, pro-embryonic stem cell research, and perhaps what truly horrifies these folks, he favors contemporary liberal economics).

However, my question of May 2007 still stands: Is Fidelis violating the Internal Revenue Code's provisions regarding not-for-profits?

If you visit the Fidelis web site, you will be confronted with a cornucopia of Catholic Right causes. Under "Issues" the only subsections we find are Abortion, Education (focusing exclusively on school vouchers) and Traditional Marriage ("Marriage is the union of one man and one woman"). A November 14, 2007 press release congratulates the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops "...for asserting the primacy of opposing abortion."

This originally appeared on Talk to Action

As we all know the craft of the magician is to use slight of hand, diversions and ruses of all kinds to perform feats of illusion that astound and entertain us. Good political scandals often arise by use of the same technique. Certain ethically challenged groups and individuals launder funds and bend or even break laws to accomplish their political purposes. We have seen this repeatedly as Religious Right groups and sometimes, individual churches, have flagrantly violated the privilege of federal tax exemption in the pursuit of political power.