Celebrity Support for Presidential Candidates...is it right?

Okay, well just because the "Church" is tax-exempt dosent mean the STAFF/Pastor is. So what is the difference?

Pastors still pay taxes even if the Church does not

"Okay, well just because the "Church" is tax-exempt dosent mean the STAFF/Pastor is. So what is the difference?" It's the church that cannot be used as a promoter of politicians, not the pastor in his personal life. Palen's former church and pastor announced to his congregation that if they voted for John Kerry, he would be concerned about their immortal soul. If you can't see the difference between that and what Britney Spears says, I can't help you. Personally, I think all churches should pay taxes.

while I think you have some good points, celebrities are also people who are listened to and have every move analized. After Brittney Spears kissed Madona did you not see our country start a new fad? While yes gay/lesbians have been around for centuries, would we have ever allowed a song called "I kissed a girl" to play on our childrens ipods/radios/tvs? No. But once Brittney and Madonna made it ok, so did America.

Lots of people care about the Celebrities not to mention the young voters unfortunatley. Yes Trinity should have lost their status I agree, but Seperation of Church and State dosent really have anything to do with endorsement of a presidential candidate.

There's one enormous problem with your response...why do you only talk about Christians and the bible? Which brand of Christianity are you selling and why? If we are to take all non-Christians in this country, we'd have more than 50 million people. No cleric who wants to have the tax free exemption should be allowed to tell his congregation how to vote. No matter how you parse it, any cleric in front of their congregation talking positively about one candidate and negatively about another will be perceived by his flock as having told them how to vote...clearly a violation. The only "free will" in the bible relates to whether to sin or not or to believe or not. Servants are to obey their masters and the congregation will always consider themselves as servants to their clergyman.

Celebrities can endorse whoever they like as they are citizens like everyone else. Same goes for church leaders so long as they do it in an individual capacity. As far as the churches themselves, when church leaders speak to their congregations, I think it is legitimate for them to point out the issues Christians should concentrate on, but those issues should not be confined just to abortion, there are many other issues, eg poverty, world peace, the environment for example that should also be of concern to church leaders and their flocks. I think it is legitimate for church leaders to point out these issues to their congregations and explain each candidate's stance on these issues. This would then enable the congretations to decide for themselves and the Bible talks about giving individual free will (ie free will to follow God or not, same should apply when deciding who to vote for). What church leader and of course charitable organisations should not be doing is ramming their endorsement of a particular candidate down their congretation's throats.

Speaking of Huckabee, he was a pastor, so a pastor can run but not endorse? hmmm...that's not right.