The Coalition for Life of Iowa was notified this week that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has granted it tax-exempt status. The group had faced questioning by the government regarding the “educational” nature of its activities, which include prayer meetings, talks and literature.
The IRS also allegedly suggested that in order to be nonprofit-qualified, the coalition would have to agree to limit its “picketing” and “protesting.”
Lawyers from the Thomas More Society of Chicago sent a memorandum to the IRS on behalf of the coalition, saying the requests “come perilously close to violating the First Amendment constitutional rights of the coalition’s supporters.”
Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, called it a great victory.
“The IRS must operate within the constraints of law,” he said, “and it cannot condition the grant of tax-exempt status on the forfeiture or surrender of First Amendment rights on the part of any nonprofit group or individual American citizens.”
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