D-G Flinches After Floyd Story Ruffles Flock (Ottakes Opinion)

We hear the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s front-page story on July 21 about the Rev. Ronnie Floyd has caused a considerable amount of irritation to his congregation. Churchgoers are writing letters to the editor and canceling subscriptions to the newspaper.

We don’t believe newspapers should “create” controversy so they’ll have a story, but reporter Laura Kellams was just doing her job when she called Americans United for Separation of Church and State to ask if the “religious liberty watchdog group” planned to file a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service.

Apparently, the D-G received a letter from a reader asking that very question because, in his July 4 sermon at First Baptist Church of Springdale (Arkansas’ largest protestant church), Rev. Floyd allegedly urged his flock to vote for President George Bush in the November election, although he didn’t mention Bush by name. The IRS doesn’t allow institutions that claim tax-free status to do political campaigning.

The Washington, D.C.-based group, which had filed a similar complaint against the Rev. Jerry Falwell, didn’t know about Floyd’s sermon until Kellams asked about it. After viewing the sermon on the church’s Web site, the group filed the complaint against Rev. Floyd. After the D-G report, every television station in the area picked up the story, with NBC 24/51 providing some Geraldo Rivera-like overly sensational coverage.

The D-G published an editorial on July 25 that, after a good bit of rambling, came to the conclusion that Floyd could speak his mind because he’s an American. The editorial was an obvious attempt to win back readers who bailed because the D-G had done a gutsy, accurate, Page 1 story about one of the most prominent religious leaders in Arkansas.