From Holden:

The Baptist preacher who forced Democrats from his congregation turns tail and runs away.

A Baptist preacher who was accused of forcing nine members to leave his church because they refused to support President Bush said on Tuesday that he was stepping down.

“For me to remain now would only cause more hurt for me and my family,” the preacher, the Rev. Chan Chandler, said as he left a meeting at East Waynesville Baptist Church.

Congregants of the 100-member church have said that Mr. Chandler endorsed Mr. Bush from the pulpit during last year’s presidential campaign and said that anyone who planned to vote for the Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, needed to “repent or resign.”

The church members said that he continued to preach about politics after Mr. Bush won re-election, culminating in a church gathering last week in which the nine members said they were ousted.

[snip]

Mr. Chandler’s resignation, at a meeting open only to members of the congregation, came a day after a national group that lobbies for church-state separation urged the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the tax-exempt status of the church.

I.R.S. rules bar clear-cut politicking by tax-exempt groups. In October, days before Mr. Bush won a second term, the agency said it was investigating roughly 60 charities and other tax-exempt groups – about a third of them churches – for potentially breaking rules that bar them from political activity.

Them are some firmly-held convictions you have there, Mr. Chandler.