Code of Ethics for Elected Officials

A lot of elected officials, especially at the Federal level, have started using social media, some fairly heavily.  This has been met with mixed feelings.  Some people see this as increased government transparency, while others have seen this as political propaganda.  Either way, participation in social media presents a serious conflict of interest for elected officials.  While it definitely can and probably should be used to increase government transparency, it can also be used to influence people and to spread propaganda, misinformation, and even downright lies, and it has actually been used this way.

As such, we need a code of ethics for elected officials, that includes but is not limited to the use of social media.  I would like to suggest a set of ethical rules for elected officials.

1. Elected officials should always specify whether a social media post, video, recording, or other publication is being produced in an official capacity.  Ideally, elected officials should always use separate accounts for official and personal communications, and the personal accounts should not reference the elected office of the official in any way.
2. Social media content published in an official capacity should stick to facts.  It should not contain propaganda, personal opinions, campaign advertisements, promotion of political or personal agendas, or anything else not directly related to the job the person has been elected to.  Statements of intent to vote on a particular bill in a particular way are appropriate but should avoid any explanation except, "This is what my constituents want".  (And even that explanation might come back to bite you, if it turns out they don't want that.)
3. Official publications that contain information later discovered to be incorrect should be amended whenever possible, noting the error and resolution, and if it is not possible, an official retraction should be published as soon as the mistake is discovered, and reasonable effort shall be made to direct all past, present, and future consumers of the original publication to the retraction.
4. Official publications should generally be reviewed by advisors and/or peers before being published.
5. Official publications should adhere to any standards, regulations, and policies set by the government body the elected official is a member of.
6. Unofficial publications should avoid any and all implication that they might be official in nature or otherwise represent anything other than the personal views of the official, including but not limited to using a separate account for that does not mention the office of the user in the username, profile, or any other publicly accessible information associated with the account.
7. Unofficial publications should avoid accidentally or intentionally using the public profile, fame, wealth, or any other benefit afforded by the public office to endorse or promote any particular political agendas, and indeed, elected officials should generally limit unofficial publications to sharing facts and personal opinion in neutral ways that do not promote or otherwise argue in support of any particular position or platform, even if adherence to this rule feels like it hampers freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
8. Unofficial publications should not be produced or published during time an elected official may reasonably be expected to be working, including any time the body the official is a member of is in session, for bodies that are not active constantly.  For bodies that are constantly active (including the Executive Branch), officials should not produce or publish unofficial publications at any time where doing so would interfere with the work or take time away from the work that would cause even minor negative effects, and ideally any such personal projects should be worked on only during specifically scheduled time off (for example, vacations).
9. Elected officials should surrender access to any and all social media accounts used for official publications upon retirement (whether voluntary or through the loss of an election or expiration of a term limit) from the position.  Ideally, the account should transferred to the ownership of the government body the official was a member of, which will act as caretaker to preserve the account and its contents for consumption by the public.  If the official is later elected to office again, ownership may be returned for the duration of service.
10. Retired elected officials should continue to abide by the terms of this code of ethics with regards to their private social media accounts, with the exception that they may engage more fully in the endorsement of personal political opinions, so long as they continue to avoid using the fame and other benefits associated with having held public office to gain an unfair advantage over other figures who have not had the benefit of holding public office.
11. Retired and current elected officials should never take advantage of the benefits of holding or having held public office for profit or personal benefit of any kind, including the use of official publications for gaining advertisement revenue, the use of official publications in campaign advertisements, the use of official publications for endorsing or advancing personal political agendas (or personal agendas of any kind), the leverage of experience in elected office to claim any manner of authority or special expertise on any matter (including paid speaking engagements), or the engagement in any kind of compensated work for any entity that the official has accepted any form of lobbying from.

Each element of this code of ethics is designed to avoid specific problems that are common today, as outlined below.

1.  Many elected officials, especially those in Congress, are currently using their position to gain fame, for future personal benefit and for the purpose of advancing personal political agendas.  This is not the purpose of elected office, and it is a misuse of taxpayer money that pays the wages of these officials.  Separating official communications from personal communications will help regular citizens separate legitimate concerns related to the job from the personal politics and agendas of the officials.  Public office was never intended to be used as a stage from which to endorse a political platform or other personal agenda.  Public officials are elected to represent the will of the people, not to preach or impose upon the people their own wills.
2. As with 1, the separation of the job from personal opinions is important, and without that separation, elected officials can and do abuse their positions to promote their own platforms, instead of doing their job, which is to represent the will of the people.  The only valid reasoning for voting in a particular way on a bill is that it is what one's constituents want or is otherwise more consistent with the will of those who the official represents than the alternative.
3. Accuracy is critical to transparency.  The people cannot make informed choices when voting, if the information they have is not accurate and up to date.
4. Oversight is wise and necessary in ensuring this code of conduct is adhered to.  It is clear that not all elected officials understand the difference between personal opinion and their job.  Oversight may help them to learn that difference, and if it doesn't, at least it may prevent more egregious violations of this code of conduct.  Oversight will also help to catch factual errors before publication, avoiding the need for excessive retractions.
5. Again, oversight is wise and necessary.  This provides governing bodies with the ability to more narrowly define what is and is not appropriate in an official publication.  This includes censorship of sensitive material that could pose a security threat if published, as well as general rules of civility and propriety in official publications.  Official publications will reflect on the quality of the governing institutions, thus they have a right to regulate the nature of those publications.  (For example, a Representative angrily swearing in a statement about the President reflects very poorly on the House in general, as well as on her constituents and on the U.S. as a nation.)
6. The use of elected office to promote personal political agendas is a serious abuse of power that needs to be stopped.  Again, the purpose of elected office is to represent the will of the people, not to promote one's own political agendas.  Using the benefits of public office to help promote personal agendas is an abuse of power and a theft of taxpayer money.  No elected position should be used to gain an unfair advantage in promotion of personal agendas over those who do not hold any elected position.  To do so is unethical and undemocratic.
7. Merely seeing the title of an elected official in the username or profile text of an account could imply that the publication is official in nature, and it will definitely provide an unfair advantage based on the elected office of the person.  Those seeing an unofficial account for the first time, who do not already know the name of the official, should not be able to tell from the account that the account is owned by an elected official.  It is impossible to enforce complete fairness, as it is unreasonable to require elected officials to use pseudonyms for their personal accounts, but as much as possible, fair practices should be observed, which is why it is suggested that elected officials should generally avoid active promotion of personal agendas on their private accounts, even if doing so seems like it gives up certain rights.  (Note that it is also traditional for the President to release his or her tax records, despite the fact that the privacy of such personal records are generally regarded as protected by the Constitution, so this is not an unprecedented ethical rule.)
8. The time an elected official is being paid to work should never be used for personal activities.  Elected office is a job, and the wages payed to elected officials are payment for labor rendered.  An elected official who is working on personal projects during work time should rightly be fired, just like any other employee who did the same thing would.  It is completely and entirely inappropriate for any elected official to be spending paid work time on personal projects, and accepting full payment for work time partially spent on personal projects is theft against one's employer, in this case the American people.
9. Official publications of elected officials legally belong to the employer of the officials, which is the American people, and thus should be preserved for the use of the people as desired.  In addition, allowing retired officials to retain control of official accounts would allow them to abuse those accounts.  Thus, all official accounts that are not currently in active use should be preserved by the body those accounts are accountable to, both to minimize opportunity for abuse and to ensure the preservation and public availability of the contents of those accounts.  A government cannot remain transparent when ex-officials retain the power to destroy official publications.
10. Retiring does not absolve an official of ethical responsibilities.  Retired officials should not be restricted in public participation in political discourse and promotion of personal agendas, as they are no longer bound to the job of representing the will of the people, but they still should not be allowed to abuse or otherwise leverage their status as retired public officials to gain an unfair advantage over those who have not served in elected office.
11. Abuse of power of this nature is rampant in our government currently, and it interferes seriously with the democratic process.  It is common practice for elected officials to cultivate special relationships with for-profit businesses and other profitable organizations to create future opportunity for themselves once they leave public office.  This results in the drafting and passage of laws and policies designed specifically to benefit special interests, often at significant cost to the general public, purely for the personal benefit of the elected officials.  This is an abominable and wicked practice that undermines democracy, violates the will of the people, and causes significant harm to the people.  This should be regarded as blatant bribery, and all elected officials guilty of this practice should be impeached and thrown out of office, then tried for the high crime of bribery (and/or solicitation of bribery) and sentenced to long prison sentences, without options for house arrest, intermittent imprisonment (like nights or weekends only), or parole.  (And maybe if high profile, wealthy people actually had to pay the same price for their crimes as poor people, our prisons would be less cruel and abusive to prisoners.)  Elected officials should be legally and permanently barred from working for any company or organization they have ever been lobbied by, and they should also be barred from taking any sort of payment or compensation for any work they do that they would not have had without serving in an elected office.  In addition, any official content produced while in office was paid for and thus belongs to the people, making it a violation of copyright law to use it for personal profit or benefit without the express permission of the people.

The fact is, a significant amount of the corruption in our government could be quelled, merely by enforcing a code of conduct addressing these elements.  This does not exhaustively cover all possible forms of corruption (for instance, the practice of earmarking funds for states as a tacit bribe for the passage of some unpopular bill), but it covers some of the most destructive and most common types of and motivations for corrupt behavior.  Hopefully by restricting elected office from being an engine for politicians to promote their personal political platforms and build relationships with special interests for future profit, the motivation for corrupt people with ill intent to seek elected office will be significantly reduced, and the tendency toward corruption for those who originally had purer motives will be decreased significantly, giving us a more democratic government that is more concerned with the will of the people than with their own personal profit.

Privatized Socialism

I was discussing our treatment of prisoners in the U.S. with some friends when I got what I think is an ingenious idea.

Part of the Left wants the government to socialize a bunch of things, most notably medicine.  Socialized medicine has some very great benefits.  It is based on the idea that healthcare is a universal need that is often too expensive for a significant portion of the population to afford.  In the U.S., medical debt is not uncommon, but more importantly, many of the lower class don't seek medical care when they need it, because it is too expensive.  A majority of medical care is not related to dangerous or self destructive behavior.  It is the result of disease, genetic disorders, living conditions, working conditions, or accidents that are not easily avoidable.  In short, most harm requiring medical care is not the fault of the person needing it.  Withholding that care for financial reasons is completely unreasonable, especially in such a wealthy society.  At the same time though, who is going to pay for it?  How do we keep things fair by providing necessary medical care without the apparent unfairness of taking wealth from others to pay for it?

This is not the only case where fairness demands both that something expensive be provided to those who cannot afford it and that rights of ownership are respected.  I have said before that death by starvation is not an acceptable punishment for laziness.  We also have mentally ill prisoners who are not entirely responsible for their actions but cannot be allowed their freedom without treatment, so they will no longer be a threat to society.  We have a political movement for abolishing the death penalty, but we also have prisoners who are too dangerous to let out but who's upkeep burden should not be thrust on the public against its will.  These are all very expensive problems.  Some we already charge to the people, even though a significant number see it as completely unfair.  Some we ignore, allowing some people to suffer for the fairness of others.

So, the other day I told a friend that the problem with abolishing the death penalty, aside from the rare prisoner that can still cause significant harm even in prison (for example mob bosses, who can orchestrate murders from their cells), is the cost.  Charging the public for the upkeep of prisoners who are too dangerous to ever release causes economic harm, violating the purpose of the justice system (which is to protect the people).  I suggested, instead of spending millions of dollars lobbying the government to abolish the death penalty, these groups should pay for the upkeep of these prisoners, thereby justifying keeping them alive.  This would retain the death penalty as a means of dealing with people who are literally too dangerous to keep alive, and it would alleviate the economic burden of keeping less dangerous people alive, who cannot be released, by allowing those who can and are willing to afford it to foot the bill.

This idea can, and in my option should, be extended to many other things, it if can be done successfully.  It would require one essential thing: The government would need to be willing to work with non-profits.

If enough people were willing to donate, a non-profit could be created that would provide a basic income to everyone in the U.S.  The best, and probably the only reasonable, distribution system for the money would be the IRS.  So, the IRS would have to work with the NPO, where the NPO provides the money and the IRS distributes it.  This could be done fairly efficiently through the IRS.  Even better though, no one would have to worry above government overreach.  The non-profit and the donors could decide controversial things, such as whether or not the funding should be distributed only to U.S. citizens or to all U.S. residents.  The actual amount distributed would be decided based on available funding.  The only government overhead would be the marginal extra work for the IRS, working the additional funds into its existing distribution.

Perhaps the best part about all of this is that it completely transcends politics.  Congress does not get to vote on whether or not to have a basic income, if it is being provided by a non-profit.  A Republican controlled Congress cannot cut the basic income to balance the budget, and a Democrat controlled Congress cannot increase government spending to raise the basic income.  The government would not have to foot the bill at all, and the only control it would have over it would be the cooperation of the IRS.  If a similar non-profit was created for a single payer medical system, it would get even better though: Medicaid would become entirely obsolete.  The government could easily cut the program (or cut it down to merely a distribution system for the funds raised by the NPO), balance the budget better, and maybe even start reducing its debt, and we would still get a decent medical system!  Add to this the prisoner related things, and our criminal justice system would cost far less.  In the long run, we could expect to see significant tax reductions, at the same time as expanding social programs and improving the fairness and living conditions of our country.

Crowdfunding is supposedly some big new thing invented in the 21st century, but in reality, it has existed for all of recorded human history.  Taxation is the involuntary crowd funding of government.  Charities facilitate the voluntary crowd funding of welfare.  I believe we can bring these things together.  Obviously the core of government and of our justice system needs to be funded, whether people are willing to donate voluntarily or not, but many, perhaps even a majority, of government programs can be crowd funded, and if they can, they should be.

The costs of crowd funding peripheral  government programs include potentially reduced efficiency and less government control over those programs.  The potential benefits include greater overall funding, especially for more popular programs, better distribution channels for charities (the IRS can distribute funds far better than any charity), more direct ability to influence programs for the general public (which means improved democratic process), the ability for people to choose whether or not to support a given program, and a much leaner government, all at the same time as providing the same or better services.

Yes, one potential problem is that some programs just won't get funded.  Not only is that already a problem (do you see a basic income), it is also not a problem with crowdfunding.  The U.S. is supposed to be a democratic nation.  What is more democratic than voting with your wallet?  There are exceptions, but in general it is accurate to say that if the people will not voluntarily fund a program, then the people don't want that program, and in a truly democratic nation, that justifies allowing the program to collapse and disappear.  There are a few programs that need funding regardless, like the military, the FDA, and the FCC.  Critical defensive and regulatory agencies should at least get minimal funding to continue sufficient operation.  Programs for social welfare, highly controversial agencies, scientific research (NASA, perhaps), and broadly socialized services (e.g. a single payer medical system), however, can and should be crowdfunded.

By crowdfunding these things, they become depoliticized.  Crowdfunding basic income and a single payer medical system eliminates the ability of Democratic candidates to essentially buy the votes of the poor by promising these things.  It also eliminates the ability of Republican candidates to buy the votes of the rich by promising to cut taxes by eliminating these programs.  The government can (and again, should) still be involved, as it is uniquely positioned to aid in distribution.  Adding a basic income to tax returns is something trivial for the IRS, because it already has a distribution system in place.  The Medicaid program already has a massive support network throughout the U.S., allowing it to provide coverage nearly everywhere.  Replacing Medicaid's underlying funding and qualification system with a universal single payer system funded by one or more NPOs would be a little more difficult than the basic income, but it would still be significantly easier than one or multiple NPOs trying to cut new deals with a wide enough network of health care providers to actually function as a single payer system.  For death row prisoners, having their support be crowdfunded to indefinitely delay execution, the criminal justice system is an essential element, but again, allowing one or more NPOs to provide that funding would be trivial.  The same applies for prisoners who need treatment for mental illness.  In all cases, the government is an essential element, but it can run leaner and avoid the distraction of controversial issues if the funding and management of these programs are outsourced to NPOs that are funded through voluntary donations.

We do not need the government to initiate this either.  We can do it ourselves.  The movement for abolishing the death penalty has enough money and influence that it could immediately start lobbying state governments to allow them to pay prisoner upkeep to delay execution, and most state governments would be far more amenable to this offer than the demand that the death penalty be abolished entirely.  There are also lobbying groups for medical reform and welfare that could easily shift their focus from trying to convince the government to provide more services to trying to provide those services themselves through a donation model.  Environmentalist groups could work with the EPA to offer better return on carbon credits.  They could work with state governments to offer credits for logging companies to avoid important habitats and replant wherever they go.  In fact, U.S. environmentalist groups could even work with other governments to provide incentives for companies to act more responsibly.  (For example, instead of spending tons of money on boats, helicopters, and other equipment to terrorize Japanese whaling boats, they could work with the Japanese government to offer incentives to whalers to reduce their quotas.)  Of course, I think we need to get things in our own country under control first, but this could eventually expand to the entire world, with international NPOs that help shape policy and behavior by offering to help instead of arguing and fighting.  The government does not have to buy into this before we can start trying to drive change.  All we need is reasonable government cooperation, and we can do the rest ourselves, and we can start now!

I believe crowdfunded peripheral programs is the next evolution of government.  It can reduce government overreach, reduce necessary size of government, reduce government corruption, increase overall freedom and liberty, and produce a better society that better fits the desires and expectations of the people.  I don't know if we are ready enough for it to ensure that it will always be sufficiently funded, but I think now is the time to start moving in that direction.

Religion in Politics

Around 49% of Americans seem to believe that it is not only appropriate, but obligatory for churches to be involved in politics.  While it is illegal, according to IRS restrictions for non-profit tax status, for churches designated as non-profit organizations to support specific political candidates, it is not illegal for churches to support specific ballot measures, initiatives, or even political movements.  While there has been some resistance to churches having any involvement in politics, the percentage of Americans opposed to church involvement in politics is far lower than the percentage for.  In fact, the percentage of Americans who support removing the non-profit restriction for supporting specific candidates is even growing.

Mixing politics with religion has been a controversial topic for almost a century, however, there was a time when few questioned it.  The American Revolution was driven, in a very large part, by Protestant preachers in the colonies.  The religious view at the time was that government was ordained of God, and only He had the right to change it.  There are even Bible passages that lend a good deal of support to this argument.  Many preachers, however, carefully studied the passages often quoted to support this idea, and they found an interesting loophole.  Most of the passages stated or implied that government was ordained of God to serve the people.  They reasoned that a government that does not effectively serve the people is not a legitimate government, by that standard.  By refusing to give the colonies representation in Parliament, the British government was not doing its job by serving its citizens in it colonies.  Many preachers explained this to their congregations, showing that even God could support a revolution against a tyrannical government, because, by His standards, a government that does not properly serve its people is not a legitimate government.  The British government did serve the people of England properly, however, it did not serve its citizens in the colonies properly, thus it was not a legitimate government over the colonies.  Ultimately, this broke down the barriers preventing the people from rebelling against Britain, and the result is that the U.S.A. is now a sovereign nation in its own right.

Our Founding Fathers were very wary of religious influence in government and government influence in religion.  Some groups of colonists had come to the Americas specifically to escape religious persecution, and even much the majority that came primarily for economic freedom and opportunity also had religious freedom in mind.  At the time (and even today), Britain had a state religion, which certain government officials were required to be members of.  The Church of England was literally owned and controlled by the British government.  Certain other religions were banned in Britain (often depending on the mood of the current monarch).  Many other European countries also had state religions as well as specific religious bans.  Punishments for violating bans or even being a member of a religion not endorsed by the state ranged from public persecution to death, depending on the religion and the current ruler.  While Protestantism was the dominant religion in the colonies, there were still some Catholics and Anglicans.  In addition, Protestantism was fractured into a large number of different denominations.  Almost without fail, any state religion would reduce a significant portion of the population to second class citizens.  This did not fit well at all with the philosophy that people should be allowed to worship as they saw fit.  The result of this was strict protections for religious freedom, along with strict condemnation of any laws that might favor one religion over the other.

So now we get to a modern application of this knowledge.  The first important thing to remember is that religion and politics are strongly related.  Government is expected by the people to enforce certain moral expectations.  In a large degree, these moral expectation come directly from religion.  Rights that are supported by all religions are often called "human rights" and are frequently turned into laws called "civil rights."  Even entirely secular laws designed to improve the national economy (including tariffs and such) are based in the Biblical principal that government is ordained of God to serve the people.  This "separation of church and state" idea that religion and government should have nothing to do with each other is both wrong and impossible.  So long as religion is common in the U.S., it will and must have an impact on government.  Likewise, government will always have an impact on religions within the region it governs.  The Constitutional protections necessary to ensure religious freedom make these influences largely indirect, but they cannot be reasonably prevented.

Back to the question: Should churches be involved in politics?  Separation of church and state as an argument against it is not valid.  While direct influence can be eliminated to a large degree, indirect influence cannot.  Churches in the U.S. have a historical precedent of political involvement.  Our Founding Fathers, who drafted the Constitution never spoke out against this practice, though they were fully aware that it existed.  It would thus be unreasonable to assume that they believed churches should not be involved in politics.  Perhaps they were wrong though, and maybe we are more enlightened.  Of course, this attitude of assuming that past generations were stupider than we are is a strong red flag.  This is an egotistical assumption that is often wrong and will cause more trouble than it is worth.  Instead we should look at the relationship between government and religion.

What is the appropriate relationship between government and religion?  Many people would say that no relationship between the two is appropriate.  This argument is impossible to support though.  There is no way the government can interact with religious without becoming involved with it.  Even wide spread prohibition of religion is a government relationship with religion (and in fact, it is the equivalent of establishing a mandatory state religion).  If the government ignores religion entirely, its relationship with religion will come through the people.  For example, despite the fact that it is unconstitutional to restrict public official to those of a specific religion, Kennedy's opponents used his Roman Catholic religion against him in their campaigns.  So long as religion exists, there will be a relationship between religion and government, and if it is eliminated by government edict, that is, in and of itself, a relationship between religion and government.  It is almost pointless to discuss the question of whether such a relationship should exist, because it is impossibly for it not to exist.  That said, in a democratic government where some of the citizens have religious beliefs, it is entirely appropriate for such a relationship to exist, because the people the government represents include religious people.

Government involvement of the general public is all about beliefs.  A person who supports unregulated abortion typically does so out of a belief that the woman should be free to choose.  A person against unregulated abortion may chose to be against it out of a belief that killing even an unborn child is murder.  One of the most controversial topics that churches have gotten involved in is same sex marriage.  Those who support it believe that homosexuals are otherwise being deprived of rights that are freely available to heterosexual Americans, while those against typically believe that homosexual acts are sinful and may ultimately result in the wrath of God.  It does not matter whether the belief comes from religion or supposed logic; neither position really has a strong argument, and it all comes down to opinion and personal beliefs.  One group may choose to subscribe to a specific set of beliefs will the other may choose beliefs ala-carte, but ultimately it does not matter.  An American citizen has the right to representation, regardless of where they choose to get their beliefs.  So long as some of those beliefs may be obtained from religion, religion is an integral part of government.  Now, this does not mean that we should strip the Constitution of its protections for religion, but it is something that anyone arguing about the propriety of religious influence in government should be aware of.

During this election season, a much larger number of churches supported specific political candidates than in the past.  While this is stated to be illegal, it is technically not.  What is illegal is for a non-profit organization to support a specific candidate, and since most churches in the U.S. are registered as non-profits, it is illegal for them to support specific political candidates.  Of course, this is actually far more complicated than it seems.  This particular law is part of IRS policy for non-profit organizations.  It is also legally questionable.  While it is not addressed specifically in the Constitution, many believe that it could qualify as persecuting churches to prohibit them from supporting specific political candidates, and the specific argument is that it infringes on freedom of speech.  While this argument does seem rather sound, it still has a great deal of opposition.  The opposition's primary argument is the "separation of church and state" argument, which we have already established does not apply to this kind of situation.  Ultimately though, it may not matter.  The 1,600 preachers that have supported specific candidates from the pulpit will likely not face any trouble from the IRS.  The IRS policy is primarily in place to prevent attempts to create non-profits designed as campaign engines for specific candidates.  Churches, even when supporting specific candidates, are not specifically designed to do this.  Churches typically support candidates that agree with their beliefs and that will support their morals in government.  This is little different from supporting specific legislation on a state level ballot (which is entirely legal).  Further though, the primary goal of these preachers is to gain the ire of the IRS, so they can push a case through to the Supreme Court, in hopes that the IRS non-profit policy will be overturned, at least with reference to religious organizations.  So far, the IRS is not biting, and they may never bite, given that these churches are not violating the purpose of the policy.

My opinion on this is simple.  I believe that churches have every right, and in fact, they may sometimes even have a moral obligation, to support or oppose specific legislation according to the beliefs they teach.  I am ambivalent about the issue of churches supporting or opposing specific political candidates, however, I have a hard time seeing any difference if a church is consistently supporting candidates that will represent their moral beliefs.  I do think that churches with non-profit status should not be allowed to make monetary campaign contributions for specific candidates.  This could easily be seen as a misuse of tax exempt non-profit funds.  I suppose, however, I would not be opposed to a specific exception allowing campaign contributions, so long as they are reported and taxes are paid on the money contributed, but these contributions should be entirely transparent, so their followers know what is going on.  (Or, perhaps even better, they could organize a contribution event, where a church official collects and contributes funds for specific campaigns, but where the funds never become the legal property of the church.  This would be sort of like how for-profit businesses have charity events, soliciting and collecting contributions for some charity.)

Overall, trying to separate politics from religion is a fruitless task.  Religion defines the beliefs of many people, and the people are supposed to define the government.  This means, in a large part, religion defines government.  Attempting to completely eliminate the influence of religion on government is impossible, and if history is a good indicator, even trying is a prediction that the government is starting to crumble.  Democratic politics and religion are both belief based things.  This is, in a large part, why religious freedom needs protection from the government.  Trying to take the religion out of politics is essentially saying that a majority of the population is not qualified to take part in government, because they are "tainted" by their religious beliefs.  This is just not how a democratic government operates.