Former mayor, Bishop Brown reflect on legal dispute; discuss Trump’s order on religious liberty

President Donald Trump signed another executive order surrounded by religious leaders Thursday.

The “religious liberty” order eases a six-decade old amendment that separates church and state Known as the Johnson Amendment.

Trump is asking the IRS to ease rules that prohibit churches and non-profits from supporting or opposing candidates. Those who fail to comply risk losing their tax exempt status.

“This financial threat against the faith community is over,” Trump said.

Trump’s executive order reminded ABC-7 of the case settled last year between Bishop Tom Brown and former Mayor John Cook. Cook sued Brown and won after accusing him and his East El Paso church of breaking the law by raising money, submitting a petition and attempting to call a recall election.

ABC-7 spoke with both men about whether the new executive order from the President would have changed anything. Brown said it would have, although local judges may have still ruled the same.

“Obviously, the executive order vindicates our church, but our church was already vindicated by the Texas Ethics Commission and the Attorney General in Texas,” said Brown, who celebrated the order, but felt his Word of Life Church had already been vindicated after paying a six figure settlement to Cook. “The Texas Ethics commission with the attorney general wrote to judge alvarez and said the word of life church did not do anything wrong.”

Brown said ministers are also citizens and there should be no limit on any citizen, whether they wear a clerical shirt or a tie.

“Let’s keep politics out of religion and lets keep religion out of politics,” said Cook, who indicated his lawsuit never stood on the grounds of separation of church and state. “Our lawsuit was very specific in that it looked at Texas Election Code, which prohibited corporations, whether they are a church or a not for profit or a for profit corporation, from circulating recall petitions.”

Brown said the settlement was nearly a half million dollars.

“The moment you place even one limit, then you have a big mess like what happened to Word of Life church, where Word of Life had to pay out about a half a million dollars, just to speak,” Brown said. “If you have to pay half a million dollars to speak, it’s not free speech.”

Cook doesn’t think the executive order will stick without congressional approval.

“If the Johnson Amendment is repealed, then all the sudden, all 501c3 charities can start participating in the political process and donations to that political process are now tax exempt,” Cook said. “You might think your money is going to fight childhood cancer for example, but it might be going to support or oppose a political candidate and that might not have been your intention in the first place.”

ABC-7 also spoke with Bishop Mark Seitz at the Catholic Diocese of El Paso about the executive order. He was glad the order will allow “regulatory relief” for groups with religious objections to health care requirements, like paying for contraception and abortion inducing drugs. But when it comes to supporting political candidates, Bishop Seitz said he does not see the catholic church getting involved in campaigns.

“We understand our role isn’t to support specific candidates,” Bishop Seitz said. “Our role is to in a certain way challenge all candidates to live according to a set of moral standards that are based upon the dignity of the human person and respect for everyone.”