much for your time tonight. my pleasure. glad to join you. the c street house, as you know, is officially listed as a church for tax purposes. what prompted you and the group of pastors to want to challenge that status? exactly that. when i actually watching your show, when i heard you talking about sex scandals and these elite powerful men seeking counseling at a boarding house that they call themselves a church, that s when my ear perked up. i thought another washington scandal. but when anyone begins to represents themselves with a church, that s when i begin to pay attention. as a pastor yourself, what concerns you the most about it being a church in term of the its tax-exempt status? are you worried that people who abuse the status cheapen it for people who deserve it? well, that s right. i m concerned about maintaining the historic role the church has played in our society all these years. and when somebody s presenting themselves as a church and yet when you begin to
the fellowship foundation said his charitable organization does not own the c street center and has no control over its policy. he said he does not know who owns or runs the center. quote, it is simply not a part of anything we do. so according to the fellowship they have nothing to do with c street. they don t even know who runs c street. today we were able to obtain what appears to be the official deed to the c street house, a deed dated september 23, 2009. it s a deed that appears to change the ownership of the property from a group called youth with a mission to an organization called c street center incorporated. signing on behalf of c street center incorporated is that group s secretary, marty b. sherman. who s marty b. sherman? well, here s the 2008 tax filing of the fellowship foundation, or the family, right there listed on page seven, hey, wouldn t you know, marty sherman, associate.
subsidize rent for their members? and why exactly is the family claiming to have no ties to the house when tax and prolt records indicate that it clearly does. bottom line here, as bart stupak tries to shut down health reform for an anti-abortion stunt that won t succeed but will make him famous, who s been paying bart stupak s rent in washington all these years? has he reported it? and why won t he answer questions about it? joining us is the reverend eric williams from north congressional united church of christ in columbus, ohio. he and others have filed a complaint challenging the tax exempt status of c street. thanks for your time. my pleasure. glad to join you. the c street house is listed as a church for tax purposes. what prompted you and the group of pastors to want to challenge that status? exactly that. watching your show, when i heard
the secrecy makes it hard to report on as well as to describe what these things mean. we know that when bart stupak introduced the abortion related amendment in the house, he co-sponsored it with joe pitts, who is reported widely to be another member of the family, but mr. pitts says, he has nothing to do with them. that s a challenge for reporting as well. it s really hard, absolutely. really hard for us to be able to learn anything. if we can shed a little bit of light on the organization. if they would open the door and invite us into a conversation maybe they could assure us or maybe we could have some of those questions that you have been digging at and digging at answered for us. as we talked about them, the family has recently claimed that it has nothing to do with the c. street house. i understand you have heard from some affiliates from the family since your complaint went public and made a big splash. is that true? i was contacted by a couple of folks. one, a gentleman
so the family claims they have nothing to do with c street and yet one of their associates is the person who s listed on the deed to c street. the mystery deepens. now, you know, the family is known to be a secretive group. one of the thing we noted as being weird in our coverage of this was that bart stupak goes out of his way to say he s never signed an oath of secrecy around c street. indeed in a letter to constituents he reiterates, quote, i have never been asked to sign a contract or oath of secrecy concerning c street or its residents. why does he keep bringing this up? not so long ago when talking about c street to the press bart stupak told the los angeles times that he kind of did abide by a code of secrecy. his quote to the l.a. times when they asked him about it was this we sort of don t talk to the press about the house. the reason this is important is because bart stupak continues to