With 9.1% unemployment, more than $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities, a $1.65 trillion deficit, more than $14 trillion in debt, and global markets on the fritz, what’s the federal government doing? If you said “cracking down on religious broadcasts that don’t provide closed captioning”, you win!

If a church broadcasts the word of God on TV without closed captions, it risks incurring the wrath of the FCC.

Some 300 small- to medium-sized churches can expect letters from the commission within the next few days explaining why their closed captioning exemptions were lifted for TV shows like “Power in the Word” and “Producing Kingdom Citizens.”

See, religious institutions were ruled exempt from the closed captioning requirements in 2006. Such requirements place financial strain on institutions and arguably violate the whole “government shall not regulate religion” thing.

But now another commission, which was lobbied by special interest groups representing deaf and hard-of-hearing people, has overturned that rule, imposing more costs and regulations on religious institutions. Hey, First Amendment? Go eff yourself.

Now the only way out of the regulations is a case-by-case review. And the only way to get approved is by showing that the regulations would basically destroy you financially. But whether a religious institution is burdened by those costs will now be up to unelected bureaucrats who can approve certain institutions they like and disapprove others they don’t.