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Bang / Guns
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Title: Government Crusade Against Churches Begins With Removal Of Non-Profit Status
Source: Newsmax Headlines
URL Source: http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2015/July06/064.html
Published: Jul 7, 2015
Author: July 06, 2015 | BEN SHAPIRO
Post Date: 2015-07-07 13:31:37 by Don
Keywords: None
Views: 3173
Comments: 39

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision mandating that states reward same-sex marriages throughout the nation, churches across the country prepare for the inevitable assault on their tax-exempt statuses.

“Beliefs” columnist for The New York Times, Mark Oppenheimer, wrote at Time.com that churches should have their tax-exempt statuses ripped away for opposing same-sex marriage. Felix Salmon at Fusion wrote the same thing:

[T]he US government subsidizes churches to the tune of many billions of dollars per year by giving them tax-exempt status. … The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, but that’s free as in love, not free as in beer. Taxation is a purely secular affair, and by default it applies to everyone equally, whether they’re a religious institution or not.

The left wishes for a nation where same-sex couples are given tax benefits for participation in a homosexual lifestyle, but where churches are punished for rejecting that lifestyle.

And it won’t stop with churches. The Christian Science Monitor asks whether conservative religious colleges will lose their tax-exempt statuses. Professor Michael Olivas of the Institute for Higher Education Law & Governance at the University of Houston said, “I don’t think that a number of these religious schools can reasonably hope to adhere to principles that are clearly in violation of public policy, a la Bob Jones.” As I wrote years ago, the Bob Jones University case, in which the IRS removed non-profit status from the university over its rules on interracial dating, will now be used as precedent by the IRS to go after non-profit institutions over same-sex marriage.

The crusade against religious churches and schools amounts to bigotry against religious believers – a bigotry clearly expressed by University of Virginia law Professor Douglas Laycock, who told The Washington Post, “The gay rights side keeps escalating its demands and public opinion keeps shifting in their favor. … Conservative believers are their own worst enemies and lead people to think they are hateful morons, so they’re not getting much sympathy.”

And this is the point: when public consternation governs the regulations on churches, we have violated the purpose of the First Amendment. There is no First Amendment right to tax exempt status, but as the Supreme Court wrote in Walz v. Tax Commission of City of New York (1970), the leading case on tax exemptions for religious institutions:

Grants of exemption historically reflect the concern of authors of constitutions and statutes as to the latent dangers inherent in the imposition of property taxes; exemption constitutes a reasonable and balanced attempt to guard against those dangers. … Elimination of exemption would tend to expand the involvement of government by giving rise to tax valuation of church property, tax liens, tax foreclosures, and the direct confrontations and conflicts that follow in the train of those legal processes. … The grant of a tax exemption is not sponsorship, since the government does not transfer part of its revenue to churches, but simply abstains from demanding that the church support the state.

The Court summed up that tax exemption for religious institutions “covers our entire national existence and indeed predates it.”

This, historically speaking, is true. As religious regulation expert Richard Couser wrote, “The notion of exempting churches from taxation did not begin in the United States. Medieval Europe, the Roman Empire under Constantine, and even Egypt in Joseph’s time exempted church property from taxation.” Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund, explained, “The unassailable fact remains that, for as long as anyone can remember, churches have always been tax-exempt or enjoyed favorable tax treatment.”

In the United States, tax exemption served the purpose of not excessively entangling the government with religious institutions, given that most civilized countries of Europe had established state churches sponsored by the government itself. The Founders – and most legislators and regulators throughout the history of the United States – understood that using the government to discriminate against particular churches would act as an abridgement of religious freedom. And the Founders would have been appalled by the federal regulations currently in place that crack down on pastors’ ability to speak politically from the pulpit.

Such regulations began in 1934 with a congressional amendment to the tax code, as Stanley points out. That amendment attempted to reject tax exemption for a church if a “substantial part of … [its] activities … is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation.” That amendment came after one legislator got upset with a church for campaigning against him based on veteran benefits.

In 1954, then-Senator Lyndon Johnson sponsored the Johnson Amendment, which labeled tax-exempt organizations those that did not “participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” He sponsored the legislation because a rival secular non-profit opposed his candidacy. Now the IRS has expanded the regulations to include a bevy of possible violations in order to quash religious speech.

In short, politicians, given power over churches, would move to destroy those who oppose them. That is why tax exemption is an important aspect of protection for churches: the government’s attempts to smack down particular churches smacks of First Amendment-violating viewpoint discrimination. Either all churches should receive tax exempt status – which they should to prevent government specifically targeting religion, since the “power to tax involves the power to destroy,” as Chief Justice John Marshall put it in 1819 – or they should not. But the idea that government will selectively benefit those churches it approves makes religion an arm of the state, precisely the situation the First Amendment was designed to prevent.

Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2015/July06/064.html#AiFkbZjp1sakidSZ.99

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#1. To: Don (#0) (Edited)

Ain't no doubt about it...

Matt 5:44

44 But I tell you: Love your enemiesi and pray for those who persecute you,

NIV

VxH  posted on  2015-07-07   14:09:15 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Don (#0)

" churches across the country prepare for the inevitable assault on their tax-exempt statuses. "

Well, I guess there are some that will be happy with that. And make no mistake, it will not end with that.

The left is always on the attack, they are like the terminator, they never ever stop, they never ever back down. They are always in a state of war attacking those that are opposed to them.

Likewise, the right, for want of a better term, never, ever stands up to them, the right never ever quits backing down.

Eventually, the backing down will stop, and the fight will begin. When, I do not know, but the left will be shocked. Just like the Nazis were shocked when the Jews fought back in the Warsaw ghetto's

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Stoner  posted on  2015-07-07   14:28:29 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: Stoner (#2)

You may be right about the right eventually standing up for themselves. Personally, I feel that chance has come and gone. The many millions of illegals amounts to quite an army for the left.

Don  posted on  2015-07-07   14:33:40 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: Don (#3)

" You may be right about the right eventually standing up for themselves. Personally, I feel that chance has come and gone. "

I think you are correct. The soap box and the ballot box are broken. Our nation is cooked.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Stoner  posted on  2015-07-07   14:39:12 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: Bob Celeste (#0)

Ping

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Stoner  posted on  2015-07-07   14:40:03 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: Don (#0)

One of the wisest secular decisions I ever made was to not allow ACP to become a 501c3.

BobCeleste  posted on  2015-07-07   17:04:04 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: Don (#0)

Government Crusade Against Churches Begins With Removal Of Non-Profit Status

The Preachers ain't going to like their gambling and drug money taking a hit,but the sad,sad truth is the churches would come out stronger because once the feral government takes "their money" away,they can no longer hang that sword over their necks as a threat to get them to do things they are opposed to doing.

They can start to stand for something other than corruption again.

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-07-07   21:01:40 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#8. To: BobCeleste (#6) (Edited)

One of the wisest secular decisions I ever made was to not allow ACP to become a 501c3.

Yup. Ain't no such thing as a free lunch. If they give you money,they end up owning you outright,and they are always going to want something in return.

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-07-07   21:02:57 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#9. To: Stoner (#2)

Just like the Nazis were shocked when the Jews fought back in the Warsaw ghetto's

The Nazis WERE shocked. But then they sent in more troops and killed them all.

The generals were shocked by the loss at Bull Run, but it ended at Appomatox Courthouse, and not very many of the soldiers who stood on the first field were still standing, or had legs to stand on, at Appomattox.

The Christian Church should not be an organization that accumulates wealth and property. Jesus and the Apostles didn't. Tax exempt status is a way for the left hand to know what the right is doing. They should teach their messages clear and clean, and if that means that tax exempt status is lost, they shouldn't be engaging in the sort of economic activities where that matters much anyway.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-07-09   16:43:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#10. To: BobCeleste (#6)

Yes, I agree that you made a wise decision.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Stoner  posted on  2015-07-09   19:08:58 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#11. To: Vicomte13 (#9)

" The Christian Church should not be an organization that accumulates wealth and property. Jesus and the Apostles didn't. Tax exempt status is a way for the left hand to know what the right is doing. They should teach their messages clear and clean, and if that means that tax exempt status is lost, they shouldn't be engaging in the sort of economic activities where that matters much anyway. "

Agree !

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Stoner  posted on  2015-07-09   19:11:32 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#12. To: Vicomte13 (#9)

I know that the RCC accumulates a heck of a lot of wealth and many t.v. Preachers do as well. Then, there are many Christian Churches that work much like the early Christian Churches. The First Amendment is still in the Bill of Rights.

Don  posted on  2015-07-09   23:50:03 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#13. To: sneakypete (#7)

Pete, you are making a generalization: in the world of logic, it's called a Hasty Generalization.

Don  posted on  2015-07-09   23:52:40 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#14. To: Don (#12)

The First Amendment doesn't prevent the taxation of Churches.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-07-10   0:25:31 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#15. To: Vicomte13 (#14)

Taxation would certainly interfere with the operation of a church as it would limit the amount of monies available for church work.

Don  posted on  2015-07-10   7:18:36 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#16. To: Don (#15)

Taxation would certainly interfere with the operation of a church as it would limit the amount of monies available for church work.

Zoning laws also interfere with the operations of churches who want to operate boarding houses and soup kitchens. The First Amendment does not guarantee that Churches and clergy will be exempt from the inconveniences of having to comply with the law. Nor does the First Amendment prevent general laws that interfere with the operations of Churches. All that it guarantees is that the federal government cannot establish an official religion, and that the government cannot pass laws preventing people from exercising their religion within the general framework of the law.

Example: the law cannot prohibit a religion that practices animal sacrifice. The zoning law can prohibit a neighborhood church from keeping and sacrificing goats and chickens in that neighborhood.

Taxes interfere with everything, including speech and religion. The First Amendment does not protect against that sort of general interference. It protects against a 50% tax levied exclusively on mosques, or exclusively on churches in general, to put them out of business. However, churches COULD be subject to the regular corporate income tax regime (if incorporated) or to partnership tax pass-through (if not).

Congress shall pass no law preventing the free association of people. Corporate and partnership taxes certainly interfere with the free association of people for a business purpose, but those laws are constitutional, because the tax laws are not aimed at preventing free association, but gathering revenue from all associations that earn money from operations.

Religion is not shielded by the Constitution from being treated like any other property-owning, income-generating business. What shields them is the political decision to not subject them to regular taxation. If the political support of churches diminishes over time, they CAN be subject to taxation and other general regulations, and the Supreme Court will not declare that unconstitutional, even though it certainly will reduce the Churches even further.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-07-10   9:04:19 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#17. To: Don (#13)

Pete, you are making a generalization: in the world of logic, it's called a Hasty Generalization.

In the world of reality it's called "More Right than Wrong".

Churches are no difference than any other organization or individual that wants to suck at the government tit. When you get in bed with the government,they end up owning you.

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-07-10   10:17:00 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#18. To: sneakypete (#17)

Churches are no difference than any other organization or individual that wants to suck at the government tit. 

State taxing religion is at least as bad as religion taxing the state, or worse.

A Pole  posted on  2015-07-10   10:47:11 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#19. To: Vicomte13 (#14)

The First Amendment doesn't prevent the taxation of Churches

Unless it limits freedom of religion including use of property needed for service and support.

A Pole  posted on  2015-07-10   10:50:14 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#20. To: A Pole (#19)

Unless it limits freedom of religion including use of property needed for service and support.

All taxation somewhat limits the use of property needed for service and support of whatever organization one speaks of, whether a business, family, charity or church. That's the nature of taxation: it TAKES, and leaves the taxpayer with less - less money, less power, less ability to do whatever he (or it) was doing before.

And that, in and of itself, is NOT a violation of the First Amendment.

Taxation would limit Churches in property, service and support. It would take somewhere around 30% of their revenues away, and thereby reduce their ability to do something like 30% of what they current do.

This is not unconstitutional, because the same thing is true as everybody else. Taxation falls on all. Right now the Churches have been exempted for political reasons, not constitutional ones. Laws of general applicability CAN be applied to churches.

Example: the drug laws are of general applicability. Certain traditional American Indian religions require the use of psilocybin mushrooms, an illegal drug. To prohibit the use of the drug because of its illegality has the effect of preventing "communion" within that religion, a rite as central to the religion as holy communion is to Catholics and the Orthodox. The government suppressed the use of the drug even in the religious ritual, and the Supreme Court upheld that application of the law. If a law of general applicability acts in such a way as to render it impossible to practice a religion, the First Amendment does not protect that religion.

Another example would be Aztec human sacrifice, central to their ancient religion. Neo-Aztecs could build pyramids in the desert. They could dress in robes and make arcane prayers to their gods. But their belief was that it was the human death, the blood, the eating of the heart, that was required to appease the god and to unleash the power. Without sacrifice, the god is displeased. The general applicability law against murder serves to effectively prevent the practice of ancient Aztec religion in America. Human sacrifice is required for the religion. Human sacrifice is prohibited as murder. Therefore, the religion itself cannot be practiced - and that is not a violation of the First Amendment. Laws of general applicability can hinder religion to the point of non-practice.

Yet a third example: wine during Prohibition. Now, for political reasons, sacramental wine was excluded from Prohibition's alcohol ban, and continued to be bought and used. But this exception from the law was just that, an exception written specifically into the law, for political reasons, to make the law easier to pass. The law COULD outright ban all alcohol, including church wine. This would most certainly interfere with our religion: the sacrament could not be legally performed, but it would nevertheless be constitutional.

Truth is: churches can be taxed.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-07-10   11:57:21 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#21. To: Vicomte13 (#20) (Edited)

Well, perhaps if so called separation of church and state does not apply to money, state should return to subsidizing church as it does with schools?

Or should it work one way only?

A Pole  posted on  2015-07-10   14:19:05 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#22. To: A Pole (#21)

Well, perhaps if so called separation of church and state does not apply to money, state should return to subsidizing church as it does with schools?

Or should it work one way only?

Who said anything about "should"?

I was writing about what is, not what ought to be.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-07-10   14:26:48 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#23. To: A Pole (#18)

State taxing religion is at least as bad as religion taxing the state, or worse.

I see it as a evil partnership.

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-07-10   14:27:40 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#24. To: Vicomte13 (#22)

Should matters

A Pole  posted on  2015-07-10   16:01:00 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#25. To: sneakypete (#23)

I see it as a evil partnership

Evil is a religious category.

A Pole  posted on  2015-07-10   16:02:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#26. To: A Pole (#25) (Edited)

Evil is a religious category.

HorseHillary! I applaud your claim that the Church invented evil,but evil existed as a concept long before organized religion existed.

In fact,a case can be made that organized religion only created more avenues for evil to travel down.

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-07-10   16:13:04 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#27. To: A Pole (#24)

Should matters

Yes, it does. And Churches SHOULD never have become invested heavily in real estate or securities at all. They SHOULD have been maintaining very modest, simple meeting places, and using all of that excess money to bring the poor, the old, the sick, the orphan into the fold of the Church, educating them, and treating them.

And the church's ongoing expenses should always be paid, day to day, month to month, year to year, by direct contributions. Churches should not have big endowments that generate money wealth independent of contributions. The money that would be frozen in endowments should be spent rescuing the poor and weak here, now, right now, for God will provide more, and one of the ways he provides more is through the contributions of those grateful for having been rescued.

This is EXACTLY how Jesus and the Apostles did it. Churches have evolved over time to wanting to be art museums and stages for an elaborate pious pageant, all of which is a waste of assets that ought to be spent on the poor.

Charitable institutions other than the church, and many commercialized churches too, generate huge revenues, and pay salaries to directors and staff that are as cushy as any executive job in any major company. This is all legal, but it is egregious.

The Harvard endowment, for example, has enough money invested to pay every student at Harvard's tuition, full ride. They COULD, as an institution, take the approach of admitting people on merit and then giving those individuals their education, gratis, as a reward for the merit of having been admitted to Harvard. And remember well: Harvard was a church university until the mid-20th Century. So was Columbia, and Yale. All of those endowments and investments were accumulating in an educational arm of the Christian church. And yet those endowments are STILL not used for the educational OR religious purpose. They're used to invest to make more, and more, and more money.

This is PRECISELY why charities and charitable organizations and churches should all be taxed. Very few of them are TRULY charitable in anything but name. They have to give away 5% of their corpus per year, so they do just precisely that, while investing to insure their obtain a greater-than-5% return on capital. That would make perfect sense, IF they were businesses. But they are CHARITIES. If all of that trapped money were mobilized to really lift the needy around them out of poverty, or out of whatever condition they're in that requires the charity, there would be a lot less NEED for charity in the future, and a dramatically reduced drain on the social safety network also.

Instead the charitable institutions and foundations are permitted, first and foremost, to act like investment funds to ensure their ongoing survival, which MEANS producing returns that allow them to pay themselves cushy salaries and benefits forever, and then dribble out only the mandatory 5%.

The traditional Churches - the Catholic Church - does better in that regard. But for us Catholics, huge buildings and a religious pageant have practically become synonymous with the religion, and most Catholics will defend the heavy physical footprint of the Church, the massive art museums, the huge stone cathedrals that feed NOBODY, that cost a fortune to build and maintain. Art is said to bring people to God. Well, there are no more beautiful buildings in the world than all of the massive cathedrals of Europe. And they're empty. Empty, and draining assets to maintain, as museums, for people to visit and not be inspired to believe anything.

And had all of that money and effort been expended, instead, on doing as Jesus and the Apostles did, how much better off - and how much more Christian - Europe would have been and would still be.

The Churches lost their way, and having the ability, in America, to amass huge fortunes and real estate empires and sit on them, like a self-licking ice cream cone, paying the salaries of staffs, not even dependent, in many cases, on people anymore. This is tragedy, and a scandal.

There is an Episcopalian Cathedral on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that touts itself as the largest in the world. It was started in the 19th Century, and work continues apace. It is a massive gothic affair. I used to live a few blocks from it. It has a small congregation of actual worshippers, who fill a few seats. And it puts on all sorts of "meaningful" art events. I saw a pagan rain worship dance there, right in the sanctuary. By every shred of the logic of Jesus, that painted stone tomb should have been abandoned long ago, or turned into a sleeping place and eating place for the large population of homeless around the area. Instead, it's a big, beautiful dinosaur corpse, with barely a warm nerve cell of FAITH in it, but with a huge endowment that will allow it to continue to be built and operate forever, a self-licking ice cream cone, a magnificent IDOL to material wealth masquerading as Christianity, while rain dances and art shows are operated there.

Tax churches, and the economic ability to maintain these idols will collapse. Huge structures and landholdings, and empty monasteries, will be lost...OR they will be converted into homeless shelters and soup kitchens, and those endowments will be SPENT raising up PEOPLE, who then in turn will be faithful and expand the flock, and contribute to keep a much more materially straightened but REAL church alive and well.

The huge pageantry and physical structures of the material church have been poison to the faith, like a lead weight on the ankle of people who can't walk on water when so shackled. Taxing the Churches and the charities will destroy many of them that NEED to be destroyed, because they're not REALLY churches or charities any more. The real ones will have to shed their excess wealth and property - things that are a drag - and will have to focus on being the apostles of Christ again, exclusively, for that is the only legitimate role that God EVER gave to Christian apostles. He never made one single one of them a landlord, or a portfolio manager. Those portfolios should be liquidated and all of that money spent, right here, right now, this year, to massively elevate the poor Christians or cusp people all around. THAT will stabilize families and make for a lot less poor.

What I am saying is true. I've listened to my Catholic brethren expostulate on how very important the ornament and pageant is, that that IS at the HEART of Catholicism, all of the pretty pageantry and "glorification of God". They're wrong. And by clinging to the idols of metal, stone and wood, they end up hollowing out the Church.

Taxing the Churches would be the best medicine to save them from worldly ties.

It would also be good for the budget.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-07-10   17:02:09 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#28. To: Don (#0)

“The gay rights side keeps escalating its demands and public opinion keeps shifting in their favor.

Only if you believe the polls that are trying to shape public opinion instead of accurately reflecting public opinion.

“Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”

CZ82  posted on  2015-07-10   17:47:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#29. To: Vicomte13 (#27)

Orthodox love beauty in their service. Judas wanted money to be spent on the poor rather than to glorify God

A Pole  posted on  2015-07-10   19:53:47 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#30. To: CZ82 (#28)

The nation's young are being brainwashed daily to accept perversions. How many of the young are seriously talking about transgendering now?

Don  posted on  2015-07-10   22:09:23 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#31. To: Vicomte13 (#20)

Taxation falls equally on all so churches can be taxed. Bull. Taxation involves control, and as long as we have the Bill of rights, taxing churches is unconstitutional. Taxation had to be permitted via a Constitutional amendment. There has been no such amendment permitting taxing of churches.

You mentioned zoning laws for churches. Where has that been permitted via a congressional act?

How much would you recommend churches be taxed?

Don  posted on  2015-07-10   22:17:47 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#32. To: Don (#30)

The nation's young are being brainwashed daily to accept perversions.

True, but do you believe that 60% or more (that's what polls say) of the people in this country believe all this crap is cool/OK??

I don't, but they sure want you to believe it's that much.

“Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”

CZ82  posted on  2015-07-11   0:36:30 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#33. To: A Pole (#29)

That is a misrepresentation of Judas. The Gospel straight up TELLS us that Judas complained that the value of the ointment used to anoint Jesus' feet and hair could have been used for the poor, but that the REAL reason was that Judas, as keeper of the purse, was a thief.

So, Judas was very much like the Charitable Trusts that I railed about above: CLAIMING to be doing it "for the poor", but REALLY keeping the purse FOR HIMSELF.

It was not about the poor. And it's a pretty bad mangling of Scripture and of God's intent to pit building ornate churches, which Jesus did not do nor recommend, and distributing collected alms for poverty relief, which he both recommended and did.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-07-11   10:42:55 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#34. To: Don (#31)

You assert that regulating Churches through laws of general applicability is unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court has never agreed with you on this. Look at this Republican Supreme Court now and tell me that they will! They will not.

How much? Churches and not-for-profits should be taxed just as any other organization is taxed: on net revenues.

You take what comes in, you subtract from that what it costs to keep the lights on and the roof repaired, and what they pay out in charity, and you look at the remainder of the income, and you tax that remainder. You tax their dividends, interest and capital gains.

You treat them exactly as you treat any other corporation or trust or LLC, depending on the form of organization.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-07-11   10:47:18 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#35. To: Vicomte13 (#34)

Give me an example where a church has been taxed with the approval of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Your desire to tax the churches is a perfect example of why the Founding Fathers gave us the Bill of Rights. King George was mad, at least he had an excuse.

Don  posted on  2015-07-11   14:27:12 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#36. To: CZ82 (#32)

Ten years ago, I would have agreed with you. Things are changing with the speed of light. What is the percentage today? I don't know.

Don  posted on  2015-07-11   14:29:12 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#37. To: Don (#35)

Your desire to tax the churches...

My desire to "tax all the churches" is a desire to tax ALL charitable foundations of whatever sort, because I perceive in them an enormous collection of resources that are not used for any real charitable purpose, but that, instead, mostly are used to generate return on endowment, high salaries and benefits for the trustees of these "charitable foundations". As far as churches go, there are churches, and then there are churches.

I object to the notion that "Christians" can peddle religion as showmen, pile up millions, live like princes, and do it all tax free as long as they put out a pittance for some sort of "charity", much of which can (and does) go to paying the "administrative costs" (i.e., the salaries and perks of the leaders) of that "charity".

Nest the "charities", as we do, and you have some of the best paid, cushiest jobs in organizations that are the least charitable in America.

On the Christian side of thing, building palatial "houses of God" is a conceit. I will grant that this was a habit first taken up by the Catholics, but when they built those first, vast, cathedrals, there was no tax code as such.

When the Reformation swept through, the governments of the Protestant countries had no problem seizing church lands as vast wealth that had been accumulated contrary to any godly purpose. In England, Henry VIII closed the monasteries and the convents and distributed that land. No spiritual purpose was seen in permitting the Church, Catholic or Protestant, in being a vast rent-seeking landlord.

And your precious Founding Fathers didn't want any NATIONAL establishment of religion, but were perfectly content for the STATES to continue to impose church taxes on every resident of those states. Some of the states maintained the Church tax, imposed on everybody for the maintenance of the established state religion. If you were, say, a Presbyterian in Congregationalist New England, or a Catholic anywhere that had the church tax, tough luck, you were paying your tax to the established church.

The Founding Fathers found that tickety-boo, as long as the Federal government didn't do it.

Are you with them on that?

I want to see the charitable foundations taxed because the accumulation of "charitable" wealth in "charitable" foundations has everything to do with wealth, power, benefits and capital accumulation, and five percent or less to do with actual charity. It's all a massive fraud.

The REAL charitable organizations, that give away most of their resources to actual charity, won't be paying much or anything in taxes, because one is taxed on net, not gross.

And the Churches, specifically? Christian institutions have no business accumulating millions, or billions, on which to earn investment usury. None of that is Christian. It's secular. I am unwilling to subsidize their conceit. BECAUSE their property and wealth are not taxed, MINE is taxed MORE to make up the difference. That is unfair and unacceptable, especially given that building palaces and pouring money into ornament and pomp isn't Christian. It's pretty much the opposite of everything Christ said or did. It isn't what the apostles did either.

As for the rest of the religious "non-churches". I am unwilling to subsidize THEIR idiocy and errors and superstitions with money out of MY child's education and health and welfare. Nothing good is ever done by "serving Allah" in a mosque. I am subsidizing evil by doing it. It is ABSURD that those institutions can accumulate money, land and wealth, and wield it, tax free, but that the dollar I give to a beggar is taxed. It's absurd and unacceptable.

Freedom of religion does not mean freedom for religion to be free from taxes, with ME subsidizing THEM by MY taxes.

The Catholics? Well, they're pretty good about giving out massive amounts in charity. And expenses are deducted from revenue. Church buildings are real property and should be taxed like any other real property. And massive endowment funds, and the income on them? Those should be taxed. There's nothing Christian about earning interest. It's anathema to Christ and God.

Tax all of the "charitable" foundations. The ones that really are charitable will pay little in taxes, because their outlays will be deductible. Pretentious palaces will pay property taxes, and churches will be persuaded to be HUMBLE, as they ought to be. And the rest, the faux-charities? They'll be taxed as the business enterprises WHICH THEY ARE, and the frauds who earn rich livings hiding behind tax-exempt status will no longer be able to accumulate excess wealth at everybody else's expense.

Nobody is going to seize the grand televangelist's fortune, but that's a business, and taxes will be paid on it.

I am no longer willing to subsidize anybody else's fraud of a religion through my taxes. And I'm not willing for my OWN religion to continue to err and build vast idols without paying property tax on it. The Catholic Church, too, needs to be dissuaded from gaudy, unchristian behavior. Spare the gilding and open up a shower and a soup kitchen instead. THAT is Christian.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-07-11   15:25:01 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#38. To: Vicomte13 (#33)

God's intent to pit building ornate churches

Are not allowed beauty in our life? If world is to be ugly it is not worth living.

Is the Church less important than museums, operas and art in general? Or are you going to ban them too?

No, analogy with Judas is right, those who deny honor to God in the name of the poor, they do not care for the poor.

A Pole  posted on  2015-07-11   15:26:57 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#39. To: Vicomte13 (#37)

In England, Henry VIII closed the monasteries and the convents and distributed that land.

He distributed this to his rich friends. Because the Church was taking care for the poor, poor were dumped in the cold.

A Pole  posted on  2015-07-11   15:30:37 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


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