Maybe it’s time for churches to take a revenue cut and not sit on the political sidelines.
America is clearly in the midst of a battle in which forces of evil are being allowed to defeat the good and determine the future morality — or immorality of this nation.
Thus, it may well be time for churches to ask whether the tax exemption for which they are selling their silence can continue to be worth what it is costing them?
How much longer can they justify remaining on the sidelines of politics to protect a monetary gain that allows politicians to be elected who are rising up like bats out of hell to legalize the morally absurd in order to commit us all to their deformed humanist amoral diktats?
Keep government out of the Church and allow freedom of speech no matter where it is practiced.
Hell no! Churches don’t get a tax break. They aren’t supposed to be taxed in the first place.
..ALL the Black churches worked OPENLY for “Obama”, organized bus caravans for “Obama”, helped elderly voters vote absentee for “Obama”, even extolled “Obama’s” supposed virtues FROM THE PULPIT, and no one threatend THEIR tax breaks…
Drove past one today with a “No Person is Illegal” message on their monument sign – fuck em, pay the tax just like everybody
Black churches like everything else black always gets a pass. And the same thing may also be true of mosques, but God forbid a normal white church ever getting any kind of a break.
The reason these direct taxes were started in the first place was to fund the PROGRESSIVE form of government.
I say no direct taxes on anyone.
Think big. It’s the only way bring things to a win.
Liberal churches can say whatever they want. Conservative churches have to keep their mouths shut.
Isn’t that they way it’s supposed to work?
Cato has the right of it.
Keep your grubby government paws off the church.
Let the church decide what they want to talk about.
Don’t go if you don’t like it.
Liberals have corrupted everything they’ve focused their red laser eyes upon. Tax churches. Tax colleges and universities. That’s where liberal leftists congregate and from which they send their evil flying monkeys.
Tax hospitals that offer abortion services.
Strangle them from wherever they hide.
Have we learned nothing from our battle with islamists, who hide in mosques, schoolyards and behind women and children? Episcopalians certainly have learned things from Muslims. And Lutherans. And Catholics. And secular Jews.
I should probably stop. But you weasels really piss me off.
Men/women/lgbtqwerty of God? Burn in Hell.
The government should treat every church in America the same way the government treated the treasonous gay Kenyan commie’s church. Hands off. If the so-called ‘reverend’ Wright can scream about his hate for America, why is the government clamping down on Christian churches extolling the virtue of loving babies in the womb?
As long as there are taxes on others, churches should be taxed. This is a 1st Amendment issue:
In order to exempt churches from taxation, there has to be some part of the law establishing just what a church is. That’s unconstitutional.
I would, though, greatly prefer that churches not be taxed, along with everybody else.
I’m in favor of not allowing the tax break for churches. I’ve never understood why they have been given a free pass on the accumulation of vast wealth.
Who should we obey, men or God?
The Supreme Court will have to rule on this if a church ever tries to test it. The constitution only states that we have freedom of religion. The 501(c)3 rule was put into place by LBJ as an amendment in 1954 it could be changed at any time if some on would stand up for it.
Q. From where did the campaigning ban originate?
A. The 501(c)(3) prohibition of political candidate activities was added to the federal tax law in 1954, without benefit of congressional hearings, in the form of a floor amendment in the Senate. During consideration of the legislation that was to become the Revenue Act of 1954, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, on July 2, 1954, offered the amendment out of concern that funds provided by a charitable foundation were being used to help finance the campaign of an opponent in a primary election.” Bruce Hopkins, The Law of Tax-Exempt Organizations, 327 (6th ed. 1992).
This was taken from ACLJ’s web site. The full article is here.
//aclj.org/free-speech-2/churches-free-speech-and-the-regulations-of-the-irs-regarding-elections-2004 ….
The problem isn’t so much the concept of taxing the churches, but who is in control of the taxation process. If recent events are any indication, the IRS will kick the ass of conservative traditional orthodox churches, and give favorable treatment to progressive churches. Property taxes? Same issue.
Tax em, retroactively.
Drinan was a Catholic priest who Represented some District of Massachusetts back in the old days. All that “separation of Church and State” is just so much bullshit, depending on whose ox is being gored. We only hear about it when conservatives (or, at least, Americans) attend the Church.
As most taxes are immoral, I can’t bring myself to advocate the taxing of churches, just to spite the totalitarians who lurk amongst them. But if we accept that churches are businesses, then they should be taxed accordingly.
And all mosques are political – by definition.
izlamo delenda est …
There are thousands of small churches in this country that can barely pay their upkeep. A very small percentage are rich mega churches. Do you want them all to fold up and be over taken by mosques as it is being done in europe? That’s being very short sighted.
It’s all about the benjamins.
If the Catholic Church would stop taking government money (through its big organizations such as Catholic Relief Services and Catholic Charities), then I’m fine with it keeping the tax exempt status and funding its own charities –including hospitals and clinics where they don’t offer abortions. And if the churches were left alone to run their hospitals and adoption agencies and schools and shelters as they see fit, maybe our taxes to support the welfare state could be reduced?
In the meantime, the church has lost its moral authority to speak out on political issues such as illegal immigrants, by taking government money to care for them. Well, that and by buggering altar boys.