Atheists Drop $1 Billion Church Suit

Washington Free Beacon ^ | 6/17/19 | Bill McMorris

[marshmallow]

An atheist group has dropped its attempt to strip American pastors of their tax exemption for housing.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation will not appeal an appeals court decision that said the federal government is allowed to exempt priests, pastors, rabbis, and other religious instructors from paying taxes on the housing they receive, ending an eight-year legal battle. The suit threatened to cost clergymen $1 billion if successful, but Chicago's Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the foundation's argument that such a tax break violated the Constitution's establishment clause. The three judge panel, citing previous Supreme Court rulings, found that, "Providing a tax exemption does not ‘connote sponsorship, financial support, and active involvement of the [government] in religious activity.'"

"Its principal effect is neither to endorse nor to inhibit religion, and it does not cause excessive government entanglement," the court ruled unanimously in March.

[dp0622]

Atheists Drop $1 Billion Church Suit..

Must have been some suit. Hand woven silk maybe.

...sorry...

[Jane Long]

.....Chicago’s Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the foundation’s argument that such a tax break violated the Constitution’s establishment clause.....

---

I’m shocked, but thankful.

[MichaelCorleone]

Strange specimens those atheists - they claim to not believe there is a God, yet they work day and night to avenge those people and institutions that do.

Why would they get all bent out of shape over others believing in something exists when it doesn’t?

Could it be they are satanists and not atheists?

[jocon307]

“Why would they get all bent out of shape over others believing in something exists when it doesn’t?”

Yes, I never understand this mindset. And the fear, the absolute fear they exhibit, fear of something they think is fake.

No lo comprendo.

[Dilbert San Diego]

They want to cleanse our society and culture of religious references altogether. In this case, they are outraged that a tax break for clergy is in our tax laws. To them, such a tax law is “an establishment” of religion by the government. I think that is nonsense reasoning, but that’s how they look at it.

The recent case of the memorial cross in Maryland, on public land, offended them because to them, public funds spent to maintain public land where a cross sits, is somehow “an establishment” of religion.

[fidelis]

"Atheism is not a doctrine, it is a cry of wrath.There are two kinds of atheists. There are simple persons who have read a smattering of science and concede, probably, there is no God; but the other type of atheist is militant, such as the communist. They really do not deny the existence of God, they challenge God. It is the reality of God that saves them from insanity. It is the reality of God that gives them a real object against which they may vent their hate."

--Fulton J. Sheen

[Tacrolimus1mg]

I didn’t know about this one. I’m glad the church won out, because that lawsuit is ridiculous. There is no way they’d win it anyway, one would hope.

[Tacrolimus1mg]

I’m an Atheist, and I don’t get it either. Live and let live. When it comes to the militant branch of Atheism, it’s pure contempt and nothing else. They don’t go after Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, or Shintoists. It’s Christians and Jews who beat the brunt of it, and I just don’t understand it.

I tried to have a rational discussion about it once, and the person told me to find a different group. It’s futile.

[Bommer]

Not really. The other religions don’t worship “the real God”, whom they hate. Buddha, Allah, Confucius, even Atheism are religions of deception. Destroy the 2 religions of the real deity and the others are nothing to care about, since they are worshiping Satan anyways.