Attention, IRS: The Family Research Council is a Christian Nationalist political lobby, not a church

Nobody in the Washington, D.C., area wakes up on Sunday morning and says, “Let’s go to services at the Family Research Council!”

That’s because the Family Research Council (FRC), which is based in an opulent building in the center of our nation’s capital, doesn’t hold services on Sundays, or any other morning. And the reason it doesn’t do that is because it’s a Christian Nationalist political lobbying organization, not a house of worship.

Yet according to the Internal Revenue Service, the FRC is an “association of churches” and thus qualifies for tax exemption as a church. The FRC isn’t the only Christian Nationalist group claiming to be a church these days. The American Family Association, Focus on the Family and Liberty Counsel also claim to be churches.

The “association of churches” designation is intended to cover denominations that oversee churches. (Think Southern Baptist Convention.) None of these Christian Nationalist groups operates this way.

Members of Congress speak up

Last week, several members of Congress sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Danny Werfel urging the IRS to review the FRC’s status.

“We understand the importance of religious institutions to their congregants, and we believe that religious freedom is a cherished American value and constitutional right,” observed the letter, which was led by U.S. Reps. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) and Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) “We also believe that our tax code must be applied fairly and judiciously. Tax-exempt organizations should not be exploiting tax laws applicable to churches to avoid public accountability and IRS examination of their activities.”

Here’s why this matters: Under the tax code, most tax-exempt 501 (c)(3) organizations must annually file a document called a Form 990 that provides some basic financial information. Houses of worship are exempt from this requirement. When groups like FRC claim to be churches, they can opt out of providing even minimal information about how much money they raise, how they spend it and how much they pay their top executives.

No accountability here

The church designation allows these groups, which spend their time trying to force all of us to live under harsh Christian Nationalist laws, to pursue a highly political agenda virtually free from accountability and oversight.

This is simply not right. Across the country, more than one million nonprofit groups – progressive, conservative, moderate, apolitical, etc. – engage in policy work within the confines of the law and report their financial information to the public. (You can find Americans United’s info right here.)

The FRC is not a church, and it ought to do the same.

It’s time for the IRS to fix this injustice.