Republicans and conservative Democrats on Tuesday used a Senate Committee viewed as a friendly forum to seriously endanger domestic partnership legislation.

Before sending the legislation on to Senate Judiciary Committee a 5-4 vote, the Senate Public Affairs Committee approved sending the 816-page bill to a third committee, the kiss of death during a 30-day session.

A bill that must go before three committees for hearings in either the House or Senate during a 30-day budget session is seen as having too much to overcome to survive the session.

Two Democratic senators, Tim Eichenberg of Albuquerque, and George Munoz of Gallup, joined three GOP senators to approve sending the bill to the Senate Finance Committee.

Sen. Eric Griego, D-Albuquerque, warned moments before the vote that adding a committee to domestic partnerships’ already-daunting schedule would doom the legislation.

“Three committee assignments would kill this bill,” Griego said.

Senate Judiciary, which participated in a joint hearing with Senate Public Affairs on Tuesday, still must vote on the bill. If it passes through Judiciary, which isn’t guaranteed, the bill then goes to the Senate Finance Committee. If it clears that committee, the bill then would go to the Senate floor, where the legislation was defeated by eight votes in 2009.

If the domestic partnerships were to clear the Senate, it would then head to the House for hearings before that chamber’s committees.

With only 16 days left in the 30-day session, the already-slim chances the domestic partnerships bill looked much diminished Tuesday.

The bill itself

The domestic partnership bill, at 816 pages, has been a sideshow during a legislative session mostly attuned to dollars and cents due to New Mexico’s sorry financial state.

The sheer size has been cited as an impediment to the bill’s chances. It enumerates every right conferred on same-sex couples if the bill were to pass, while at the same time conspicuously avoiding any mentions of “marriage” or links to the New Mexico state statute establishing marriage.

Advocates had hoped that by avoiding marriage language they might win over state lawmakers opposed to the legislation last year and qualm their fears that it would lead to same-sex marriage.

The result is unusual among other pushes for domestic partnership across the country, said David Masci of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Masci was an invited guest on The Independent’s live blog Tuesday.

“I don’t think there has been a bill this comprehensive in the other states that have some sort of domestic partnership law,” Masci wrote on the live blog.

New Mexico is part of a trend

Tuesday’s action represents the latest challenge to domestic partnership legislation in New Mexico, where advocates have pushed unsuccessfully for years while supporters of such agreements have notched modest success elsewhere in the country.

Several states, including Washington, Nevada, Wisconsin, California and New York, have domestic partnerships or civil unions. A handful of states — Iowa, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont — meanwhile, have legalized same-sex marriage.

“It seems that more and more states — like NM — are considering this,” Masci wrote in the live blog. “Public opinion shows that the American people favor granting at least some rights to same sex couples, but are more wary of granting full marital status.”

That wariness of same-sex marriage surfaced during Tuesday’s hearing.

Tuesday’s testimony

Jill Norton, for one, told state lawmakers that she rejected the argument put forth by advocates that domestic partnerships would only extend rights to same-sex couples. The specter of same-sex marriage hung over Tuesday’s proceedings, she said.

“Senators, do not be fooled. This legislation is a prerequisite for same sex marriage,” Norton told the joint committee hearing. Same sex marriage “will be a done deal if this legislation is passed.”

Masci and others disputed Norton’s statement, saying domestic partnerships or civil unions don’t always lead to same-sex marriage. The paths to same-sex marriage are varied, they added.

For example, the top court in Iowa – one of only five states to legalize same-sex marriage — ruled that that state’s marriage law was unconstitutional because it didn’t allow same-sex couples to marry. That state didn’t have domestic partnerships or civil unions.

Norton nonetheless zinged lawmakers supportive of domestic partnerships with a remark some heard as a threat.

“Unless you want a repeat of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, you should oppose this bill,” she said, referring to the victorious Republican who bested a front-runner Democrat in Massachusetts to win an open U.S. Senate seat.

Advocates argued, however, that passing domestic partnerships this year would make life in New Mexico fairer for gay and lesbian couples.

Rose Griego offered state lawmakers a visual aid Tuesday to drive that point home.

It was a green binder. Inside was a two-pound agreement that cost $3,000 and that consolidated all the rights available to Griego and her partner, Kim Kiel, under state law.

“It is not fair that gay people have to go to such lengths,” Griego told lawmakers, referring to the expenses the couple spent to consolidate their rights into one document. Despite the investment, the number of rights available to them pale next to those enjoyed by married couples, she said.

“Separate does not mean equal,” she added.

Tuesday’s speakers run the spectrum

Tuesday’s hearing attracted a range of speakers, from a lawyer working on a legal team defending a voter-approved ban of same-sex marriage in California to a northern New Mexico widow who said her gay son deserved the same rights and opportunities as his two brothers.

“I’ve been Catholic since I was born. I love and respect my church,” said Mary Louise Montoya of Mora. “Our church is very clear that we are to respect all human beings. My sons are very different from each other, but I love them equally and unconditionally. One of my sons is gay. All three sons deserve the same rights and opportunities.”

Brian Raum, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, countered by saying that passage of domestic partnerships surely would lead to same-sex marriage. Raum is on the legal team defending voter-approved Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California after that state’s top court created same-sex marriage in a 2008 ruling.

The hearing also featured dueling interpretations of how Christianity should come down on the issue of domestic partnerships.

Allen Sanchez, executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops, said “the church interprets it as a steppingstone to marriage. It parallels marriage.”

As such, the church had to oppose the bill and stand with the “traditional interpretation of the gospel for over 2,000 years.”

But Father Christopher McLaren St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Albuquerque, countered, telling state lawmakers “If Jesus were here, he would be asking you to act with compassion, not fear.”

“I believe Jesus is here today,” he added. “And he is looking at you, the powerful .. telling you that the hurt and pain of my brothers and sisters should be taken seriously.”

A survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in August found that the majority of Americans — 66 percent — oppose political endorsements from the pulpit.

Table from Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

The act of civil disobedience by the pastors was organized by the Alliance Defense Fund, a socially conservative organization that believes clergy have the constitutional right to endorse political candidates from the pulpit. The protest was explicitly meant to trigger a legal examination of the IRS rules that bar such endorsements by tax-exempt organizations, with the goal of having the issue wind up in front of the Supreme Court.

And they may get their wish. On September 29, an organization called Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed complaints with the IRS about six of the sermons that were publicized. All six of the pastors endorsed John McCain or advocated against Barack Obama.

Regardless, the Pew Forum survey suggests there is widespread agreement among religious groups that politics during election periods have no place in church:

“… among religious groups, white evangelical Protestants are nearly as opposed to such endorsements as are those who are unaffiliated with any particular religion (64% vs. 68%). Black Protestants register the lowest level of opposition, but even among this group, those who oppose such endorsements outnumber those who favor them by almost 20 percentage points (55% vs. 36%).”

The survey also found that those who identify as very committed to religion, as well as those who attend services once a week, oppose political endorsements in church in numbers larger than 60 percent.

The paper highlights a pastor in Indiana who told his congregation that voting for Barack Obama would be evidence of ”severe moral schizophrenia.”

The pastors appears to have taken up Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund on its offer. Leading up to Sunday, the ADF encouraged pastors across the nation to endorse political candidates in violation of IRS rules set out for 501c3 non profits, a provision that churches fall under. In turn, ADF had promised to provide participating churches with attorneys to defend all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court what ADF says is the pastors’ First Amendment right to “speak freely” from the pulpit.

As ADF says on its Web site:

 

The sermons are intended to restore a pastor’s right to speak freely from his pulpit without fearing censorship or punishment by the government. By standing together and speaking with one voice, it is our hope to recapture the rightful place of pastors and churches in American life.

But after learning Wednesday that pastors around the nation may be committing an act of civil disobedience by endorsing candidates from the pulpit this Sunday, she decided she’d add a “happy face” symbol to the title to make sure the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) knows her candidacy is a joke.

“I was going to ask them to endorse me,” Robinson told the New Mexico Independent of her original plan for her congregation on Sunday. But what was initially a “wacky” premise is now “getting more and more serious.”

In writing her sermon Thursday morning, she added an introductory section that goes like this:

It is completely not OK for a tax-exempt organization like a church to support a candidate or participate in electoral politics. This church chooses to be tax exempt, which means that we can comment on and take sides on the issues of the day, but we can never support, reject, or endorse candidates for electoral office.

That introduction resulted from an NPR report Robinson heard Wednesday about the so-called “Pulpit Initiative,” an effort by the conservative Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), based in Arizona and founded by James Dobson and Focus on the Family in “defense of family values.” ADF is encouraging pastors to pointedly endorse political candidates this Sunday. In turn, ADF promises to provide participating churches with attorneys who will defend all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court what ADF says is the pastors’ First Amendment right to “speak freely” from the pulpit.

As ADF says on its Web site:

The sermons are intended to restore a pastor’s right to speak freely from his pulpit without fearing censorship or punishment by the government. By standing together and speaking with one voice, it is our hope to recapture the rightful place of pastors and churches in American life.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Alliance “contacted ‘hundreds’ of ministers, rabbis and priests, seeking a range of political views for Sunday’s action. But most of the churches it managed to recruit appear to be evangelical Protestant or Pentecostal congregations, whose pastors and members tend to be right-leaning.”

The handful of religious leaders contacted by the New Mexico Independent for this story either had not heard of the initiative or said they did not plan to participate.

“We strongly believe in First Amendment rights, just won’t be able to participate on the 28th as plans have already been made for the services,” Senior Pastor Wayne C. Barber of Hoffmantown Church wrote NMI in an e-mail.

Pastors at two southern New Mexico churches, Pastor Melvin Suttle at the First Assembly of God in Roswell and Pastor Jack Brock at Christ Community Church in Alamogordo, said they had not heard of the initiative.

Pastor Timothy B. Smith at the Sonoma Springs Presbyterian Church in Las Cruces told NMI he was “familiar with the Alliance Defense Fund’s Pulpit Initiative and I am generally supportive, which makes me a distinct minority among the churches in my denomination.”

But he added, “I have chosen not to preach on candidates for government office. I believe it would be incredibly divisive in my particular congregation.”

Smith said he would, however, “spend a few minutes this Sunday urging everyone eligible to register to vote before the deadline.” He said he also intends to devote five to 10 minutes the Sunday immediately before the election to “talking with my congregation about the importance of voting and participating.”

“I will at that time also talk about the moral values and world view central to the teaching of Scripture,” Smith said, “and I will urge them to consider those values and world view when casting their ballots.”

A number of other churches, including one of the state’s largest, Calvary of Albuquerque, did not respond to NMI’s inquiry for this story.

While Robinson told NMI she would not endorse the Pulpit Initiative, at the same time, she added, “I’m not really sorry they’re doing this. I’d like the law to be clarified.”

The “law” is the IRS tax code as it applies to churches, which are prohibited “from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.

Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.

Violation can result in revocation of tax-exempt status, which is where the ADF would step in.

A decidedly different view is offered by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which says on its Web site that some clergy are confused about federal tax law “due to misinformation spread by advocates of church-based electioneering.”

For example, some religious leaders might wonder what constitutes an endorsement of a candidate. Prohibited activities include letters of endorsement printed on the letterhead of the church, synagogue, temple or mosque. Distribution of campaign literature, pulpit endorsements of candidates, display of campaign signs on religiously owned property and other similar activities also clearly indicate partisan involvement in an election. (It should be noted, however, that clergy may endorse candidates as individuals in forums outside the church or work on behalf of candidates during their personal time.)

The site also says the regulation is “designed to protect the integrity of the election process. Special types of organizations already exist to help political hopefuls win public office. Those groups, such as Political Action Committees, have a different tax status and are organized under a different set of rules than 501(c)(3) groups, rules designed to ensure that the nation’s campaign-finance laws are followed. Blurring the distinction between these two types of organizations would harm both religion and politics.”

Americans United also says most Americans oppose politicization of houses of worship. “Survey results released in March 2002 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 70 percent of Americans said churches should not endorse candidates,” its site says.

Three former IRS attorneys have written the IRS alerting the agency to the initiative, questioning whether the nonprofit ADF is jeopardizing its own tax-exempt status by organizing an “inappropriate, unethical and illegal” series of political endorsements.

Robinson thinks the Pulpit Initiative is “pretty in-your-face” and that the preachers are likely to end up losing the battle. “I think they’re likely to lose — at least temporarily lose — their (tax-exempt) status.”

A Minnesota pastor who plans to endorse on Sunday told NPR it’s no big deal if his church loses its status as he will have it back the next day “because churches are automatically tax exempt.” (The pastor also told NPR electing “Godly people” is more important than money.)

In her remarks prepared for next Sunday, Robinson refers to that pastor as “clueless” about the seriousness of the initiative, and in that regard, says the initiative is fraught with danger for those who participate.

At the same time, however, she told NMI she thinks the IRS “is definitely out of line” in its enforcement of the tax code, targeting “small-time, poorly educated pastors” who don’t understand the subtle difference between actually endorsing and taking positions on issues. Many, she said, don’t realize they are breaking the law.

In a preview of her upcoming sermon provided to NMI, Robinson says:

Let me comment that the IRS has been both negligent and out of control on this subject, ignoring pastors who have flaunted the law and also harassing some pastors who have stayed on the right side of the ‘issues-not-candidates’ rule. To their credit, these pastors are trying to attract the attention of the IRS this week — they are not sneaking around. I admire people who are willing to challenge the law and take the consequences of doing so. That’s one way the law of this land is refined, after all.

However, I want to express my opinion as a preacher, that any preacher who can’t figure out a way to let his or her congregation know who to vote for without naming names isn’t a very clever preacher. It doesn’t take much perfectly legal preaching about issues to make it clear in this polarized world who you think should win an election.

In talking to NMI, she recalled the 2006 case in which the IRS “took a liberal Episcopalian church to court and scared everyone to death.” In that case, the IRS said the preacher was so obviously negative about the war that he was therefore against President Bush. A court ruled in favor of the church and against the IRS.

In her own church, she said it gets sticky when “our more politically involved members” pass out campaign materials or want to invite certain candidates to functions. It is difficult for a church to stay politically neutral, she said.

Which is why she’s having fun wistfully remembering the comic candidacy of Pat Paulsen, who could look presidential and with a straight face describe himself as “Just a common, ordinary, simple savior of America’s destiny.” Paulsen, by the way, is still “running” for president even though he died in 1997, and a story just this week in the Hartford Courant recalls another classic slogan: “I’ve upped my standards, so up yours!”

Here’s more of Robinson’s text from “Christine for President”:

So what’s the title of the sermon mean? Looks suspiciously like electoral politics from the pulpit, but it’s a joke, a device, a literary technique to get you excited about a sermon which is going to be about issues. … Since you are not able to vote for Christine on any ballot, the whole thing is a joke. OK?

And when Robinson takes off her clerical robe on Sunday and becomes a “candidate,” her congregation will hear the real sermon, the issues sermon which, from the way it starts out, makes it clear this “candidate” is serious about the issues.