Outrageous use of the pulpit

While Barack Obama tries furiously to distance himself from the controversy fomented by his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and his successors, lost in the controversy is the gross misuse of the pulpit.

Churches are tax exempt for a reason--they are places of reverance, soul-searching, strengthening the social fabric and community service. They are not allowed under the tax code to be used for political purposes, and particularly not from the pulpit on Sunday morning.

This is precisely what Obama's pastors have done, and yet the IRS has winked and looked the other way. Sunday morning politics are a staple of the black church, and yet they are given free reign to keep doing it. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have campaigned on Sunday morning in black churches across America, with no censure. Their publicly televised remarks reek of politics and partisanship--specific church no-noes--and yet, the mass media accepts it a grand tradition.

Let a white suburban evangelical pastor dare breath a word against abortion, homosexuality or other pro-family issues from the pulpit, and the IRS is banging on his door.

A serious double standard is at work here, and it needs to stop. It turns out that the Catholic priest who blasted Hillary Clinton from the pulpit of Obama's church, Trinity, in Chicago, is a major fundraiser for Obama in all his political campaigns, and they have a tight relationship going back over a decade.

The liberal mass media refuse to report this hypocrisy. They need to start.