Government Tries to Convince Atheists They Might Qualify as 'Ministers of the Gospel'

The litigation between the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the United States over the parsonage exclusion has taken an odd turn.  The Government is trying to convince a couple of atheists who get housing allowances from  FFRF that maybe they might qualify as "ministers of the gospel".
The parsonage exclusion (Code Section 107) allows "ministers of the gospel" to exclude from income both in-kind housing they receive from congregations and cash housing allowances that are spent on housing.  Although the benefit is usually a fairly modest boost to the take-home pay of ministers of small congregations, there is no dollar limitation allowing for the folks my blogging buddy Reverend William Thornton calls "religious racketeers" to have six figure housing allowances.  As Reverend Thornton wrote:

    Someone make the case that Joe Sixpack has to pay taxes on his income and doesn't get any exclusion for his singlewide complete with a deck and a mangy dog sleeping under it, while Kenneth and Gloria Copeland live in an 18,280 square-foot lakefront parsonage on 25 acres valued at $6.2 million and exclude hundreds of thousands of dollars from income taxes under the housing allowance, or while Phil Driscoll enjoys not owing federal income taxes on $408,638 provided to him by his ministry to buy a second home on a lake near Cleveland, Tenn. [BTW - Driscoll won in Tax Court, but ended up losing on appeal]

FFRF, on the other hand, is upset by any housing allowance for clergy viewing it as an unconstitutional subsidy to religion.  That is why they are suing.

The Problem of Standing
It is actually pretty hard to litigate about somebody else's tax break.  The explanation is pretty lawyerly.  The general idea is that if you think the laws are screwed up in general, you should be calling your congressman.  To have access to the courts you should be arguing that the laws are screwing you specifically.  FFRF came up with a clever way around this problem.  They started paying two of their officers housing allowances.  They could then argue that they were being treated unfairly, because  they were not entitled to exclude their housing allowances.  The Government, in a summary judgment  motion, argued that they did not have standing, because they did not file a claim with the IRS, but the Court thought that was pretty silly, since the FFRF officers were clearly not ministers.  That was nearly a year ago.

Things Get Weird
So now we come to the weird turn.  In another summary judgment motion, the Government is arguing that maybe the FFRF officers are ministers.  It reminds me a little of a travelling salesman joke - probably the only traveling salesman joke that would not run afoul of the contributor guidelines.  The travelling salesman has a flat tire and finds that his jack handle is missing.  It is very late.  He decides to walk half a mile to a farmhouse and ask to borrow a jack handle.  As he is walking he reflects on how annoyed the farmer might be to be awakened.  You can stretch the joke out for as long as you want here with various thoughts the salesmen might have.  At any rate, he knocks on the door and a groggy farmer asks him what he wants.  The travelling salesman says "To heck with you.  You can keep your GD jack handle."  The Government is taking the role of the puzzled farmer.  Gee, why are these guys suing ?  Maybe if they asked nicely we would let their housing allowances be exempt.  UCN