Posted on 02/28/2014 6:54:46 AM PST by C19fan
Back in 2012, a full two years before conservatives insisted that religious freedom entailed the right to discriminate against gay people or gay spouses in both private and public workplaces, Republicans in Washington trotted out the same religious liberty line for the arguably narrower purpose of defending religious employers who wanted to be exempt from the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate.
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It would be an infringement upon religious liberty to shutter a church that refused to marry interracial couples. But how many conservatives would go to bat for that church if the government rescinded its tax exemption? Would they argue that religious freedom entails the freedom to discriminate in otherwise unlawful ways and pay no taxes? I kind of doubt it. The same logic obviously extends to same-sex couples. And yet, if the past week proved anything it’s that many, many conservatives believe that not only is it morally acceptable for a church to refuse to marry same-sex couples, but that the only way to uphold that church’s religious freedom is to make sure it keeps its privileged tax status as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
The Church will never stop performing marriages. It might stop working with the state, as the state’s definition of marriage deviated from the Church’s long ago any way.
Freegards
Amen. Nothing more than hush money, being forced to refrain from preaching sermons the State finds objectionable.
Some homosexuals are more honest about the agenda than others.
One honest one said the agenda is simple, gays win, Christians lose.
I think the latter is more important to most of them than the former.
Could you tell me more about “civil-tax-funded” churches? They are *funded* by the state?
By accident, I'm sure, the author actually stumbled into the truth. Everyone knows that the social trump card is "DISCRIMINATION." As long as I can figure out what identity group is being targeted, I can always drum up social support by screaming discrimination. The so-called race card is just a special case of the bigger discrimination card.
I'm sure the author had a point for that article but I sure couldn't find it. What a poorly written, illogical piece of garbage. Pretty run-of-the-mill for Salon, however.
Yes, exactly. The government officially "recognizes" or sanctions a particular church body, citizens then declare themselves members of said church body on their annual tax forms, and the government sends a portion of that citizen's collected tax dollars to the sanctioned church. See these threads for some real-world examples of how it does and doesn't work:
Austria:
Austrian Catholic church exits increase to a record high since 1945
Hungary:
[Hungarian] Government to temporarily cut church financing
Israel:
Vatican, Israel talk finance - at last
Belarus:
Belarus: Church Evicted
Reflections on Pluralism
Spain:
Financially Troubled Parts of Europe Consider Taxing Church Properties
Tax the Church? In Spain, it Saves the Govt Billions
Spanish Govt. and Roman Catholic Church reach financing agreement
Spanish Bishops say the Church has no intention of self-funding [Catholic Church 15-20% govt funded]
Germany:
Germans quit church during 2010 sex scandal
Catholics to exclude dodgers of church tax
German Catholics can only remain in the Church if they pay membership tax, rules court
Costa Rica:
Status of Church Questioned [Roman Catholicism, the official religion of Costa Rica]
Slovokia:
"Religious freedom in the Slovak Republic"
Fewer believers, but church coffers swell [Czech Republic]
Actually the church should willingly throw off the exemption chains and speak loud and proud.
...then get ready to accept the loss of Catholic schools, even more so than have already happened...do you think a typical diocese, already strapped simply running the churches, is going to find the finances to fund extremely expensive schools when 25-30 percent of its income goes back to the taxing authorities...?
...and what about the parishioners...they don’t contribute disposable income to a diocese so it can go and hand some of the the money over to the government...
...relinquishing a crucial tax exemption for the purposes of making some lofty political statement might happen in the movies or some stupid novel, but nowhere else...
People who sell themselves for a tax e4xemption are unworthy of my respect.
Just remember that so you don’t even have to waste your time responding to me.
Its no longer enough that the GOP has signed on to the homosexualist agenda - now, we have to hear about gays 24/7. Gay this, gay that. I can’t take it.
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