Double standard

A few weeks ago, Rep. John Conyers asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate MCRI-supporter Ward Connerly. Recently, a number of tax-exempt religious organizations announced their opposition to the MCRI and launched a misleading campaign to encourage voters to oppose it.

While the law allows these organizations to support or oppose ballot proposals, this lobbying is limited to those proposals that further their exempt purposes. The MCRI applies solely to public employment, contracts, and education. Nothing in the proposal would affect the religious sector. In fact, the Catholic Church will be able to continue to deny women a role in church leadership and Islamic clerics can continue to advocate that women be treated as second-class citizens.

In the interests of equal treatment, I wonder if Conyers will request an IRS investigation.

[Letter to the Editor - The Detroit News. Submitted 09/13/2006.]