Churches and Taxes

[Wesley Mouch]

Yet, the digressive issue was that a caller brought up to Thom the hate rhetoric spouted by a "Christian" leader, and she posited the more balanced argument [[as I would agree) that any church that runs counter to it's teachings by openly advocating racism, discrimination, hatred, or violence is not living up to an objective standard common for most faiths or at the very least, the common good of society in general [[as far as society deems ethics in a general sense-as nebulous and shifting as that can be). She suggested that such a church should lose it's tax-exempt status [[Thom is for taxing churches, but not Monasteries). Thom was also fair to mention that not all religions act as monolithically as one would presume [[Baptist, Methodist, and most of all, Pentecostal being the most schismatic in nature).

I went into depth with the Green v.....hearings that did indeed spark the formation of the Religious Right. I did this not just as a very informative history lesson to get a better understanding of how things happened in the last 38 years and what were the real motivations, but also as a statement that there were indeed some regulatory measures [[to some effective degree-that is, to say, effective enough to mark the bigoted hotheads for who they were) justly put into effect that governed the standard of the relation between taxes and churches [[and schools, etc.).

It can only be defined within the margins of racial discrimination, but I wish any church leader that spouted open violent hatred-be it Randal Terry https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Randall_Terry, Fred Phelps, or Rousas John Rushdoony would lose their tax exempt status [[seeing as the Golden Rule is common to so many faiths, I guess the same tax exemption yank can apply for any synagogue or mosque that advocates bombing or genocide, as well.)

My brother has been insisting for quite a while that groups like the Moral Majority, Christian Coalition, and Religious Right are defunct and dissolved. I'm not so easily placated. They just take on whatever new form best suits-not their religious ideologies-but their political ones. I caught a PBS report on religion and while most theologians don't have their head up their butt to quite clearly see Trump for what he is [[a violent and unstable bully who wants to gamble with our future as one put it, but a clear and calmer tone was set by this Southern Baptisthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lppmnq4d5w), you got guys like these folks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_...edom_Coalitionor this odd one http://www.rightwingwatch.org/conten...-unnatural-sex[[and I'd watch it with these New Apostolic Reformationists here!) with a Dominionist attitude and with such whacked views on "God's will" as it applies to current events/disasters, that he may very well become the next Pat Robertson 2.0. Oh yeah, they support Trump big time.

Just always remember that we give great liberty to ideas. If its not seditious nor illegal, let them talk. Their tax-exempt status should be sufficient to allow categorization into a lower property tax bracket. Avoid writing all kinds of little rules. Prefer liberty.

[Bigdd]

According to the Constitution,.. churches SHOULD be taxed.

The purpose of Separation of Church and State is to keep government out of the religion business,... to keep them from declaring an official religion or religions.

But that's EXACTLY what they're doing. Government decides what is and is not an acceptable religion,.. and then gives financial benefit to the ones that pass their standards.

"IF" the government was to do it right,.. they would stop that and just tax all property the same.

It's amazing just how perfectly wrong the governments "Federal especially) can get things some times.

[expatriate]

For every historic building "preserved" there are many more unworthy structures being used for this purpose. Preservation would be better served if these congregations would save the historic buildings actually built as churches rather the nondescript storefronts.

[Gistok]

For every historic building "preserved" there are many more unworthy structures being used for this purpose. Preservation would be better served if these congregations would save the historic buildings actually built as churches rather the nondescript storefronts.

As noble an idea as that is.... the sheer costs to maintain [[let alone heat or cool) some of these buildings is a very expensive undertaking... while storefront churches can be gotten on the cheap.