Churches that play politics should pay taxes
Posted on Friday, June 10, 2011 at 10:07 AM
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Critics have seen it as a particularly blatant attempt to write Minnesota off President Obama's 2012 win column by offering a tempting carrot to draw out the evangelical vote - at the expense of an apparently disposable minority.
Remember that same-sex marriage is already prohibited in Minnesota by statute. So the truth is there's just no way to talk about this unnecessary amendment other than to call it what it is: a political ploy wrapped inside an anti-gay attack.
But the state's most prominent conservatives get very upset when you call it that.
Minnesota Archbishop John Nienstedt wrote a column this week defending the Catholic Church's decision to lobby for the amendment insisting that it's not 'anti-gay, mean-spirited and prejudicial.'
Really, Archbishop? You want to deny gay people the right to protect their relationships and their families under the law and you want the public to believe that's not anti-gay?
No one's buying it. If you try to limit someone's behavior without actually protecting them or anybody else from anything, it's an attack.
To justify his position Nienstedt echoed the sentiments of New York's Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who claims if same-sex marriage is legalized, it could lead to polygamy and incest.
It could, I suppose, but it hasn't. Same sex marriage has been legal in Canada for years, and no one has applied for a liscense to marry their mother - or multiple partners.
Untruths told in the name of religion are still untruths. If you plan to influence public policy shouldn't you at least make a special effort to be honest?
No one anywhere is advocating for polygamy or marrying their relatives, so Nienstedt must either be willfully misleading us or delusional.
Is anyone else becoming increasingly uncomfortable about the Catholic Church's deep involvement in this state issue in Minnesota, New York and elsewhere?
It's become clear church officials are using their influence to encourage citizens to vote a certain way, whilst retaining their tax exemptions. As it becomes obvious to all how deeply they're involved isn't it time we taxed them like any other PAC?
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olovely | Jun 14, 2011, 06:20 PM EDT
Yes, but we didn't elect the Son of God, so he won't be drafting our legislation, will He? I'm not sure who you think governs the United States but I can assure you it isn't Jesus. When His representatives want to craft policy they'll have to pay their taxes like every other citizen. That simple.
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jacersagain | Jun 12, 2011, 05:37 PM EDT
Gearoid4 has responded well to olovely and others. The Christian Church has a mandate from Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to spread His message to love God and to love one’s neighbour. If people, having heard the message, choose to reject Christ’s message and his teachings, that is their free choice but it’s certainly not Democracy. If priests of any true Christian Church get involved in matters that badly affect the welfare of the poorest of their Communities, it is because they are called upon by Jesus to do so. That is their Charity at work, not political democracy or socialism. If they use funds towards that end, it must be remembered that these funds are donations from Christians in the Community at large (the silent majority) and should be respected as such – as donations to a charitable cause, entitled to be free of taxes. In any case, any donations to any charitable cause are from monies left over from monies already taxed before they are donated by people in the Community at large. Cahir is off his rocker again, lacking utter sense, with this article above. For the purposes of this debate, please don’t bring up the abuse scandals – they are not pertinent to this issue and the work of all good Christian ministers and Christian Communities’ charitable donations in the context of Cahir’s article above.
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olovely | Jun 12, 2011, 12:45 AM EDT
The Church can say what they like in the pulpit, that is their right. But when they start funding political campaigns like the National Organization for Marriage's or Proposition 8's directly or through their affiliates they have crossed the line into politics. Then they need to be taxed on their contributions. Then we need to take a look at the issues they're funding and how much they're paying. That's democracy.
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olovely | Jun 12, 2011, 12:39 AM EDT
Jacersagain, you're a sanctimonious yahoo and that's real. Stop badgering us with your bronze age magic stories. Seriously.
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Gearoid4 | Jun 11, 2011, 06:52 PM EDT
Olovely, the Church like other public bodies and associations is just simply exercising their constitutional rights in the public domain of political debate. One cannot simply draw a curtain across an imaginary dividing line between the public and private where moral issues of a fundamental nature are involved. Thus the Church has a right to lobby against measures which are detrimental to their Christian beliefs. Would you question the non-taxable status of Planned Parenthood for example who seem to have undue influence with a lot of politicians in both Houses?
Ludwig, your ludicrous assertion that those who oppose religious policies will eventually end up burn't to a crisp on a burning pyre defies belief. You regurgitate the 'black legend' myth of distortion regarding the Spanish Inquisition which modern research shows to be not any more severe than other contemporary legal systems and in someways more benign(although we should see such justly regard the use of this type of justice as a dark episode in Church history). You try to somehow associate the teaching on the culpability of the Jewish people in the crucifixion of Christ with the anti-Semitic policies of the genocidal nazis which led ultimately to the Holocaust. Hitler was ultimately responsible for these crimes against humanity and his prime motivations came from pagan and fanatically nationalist sources. The Catholic Church leadership at best had a disjointed resistance to Hitler and at worst a collective indifference. Some prelates like Cardinal Clemens August Graf von Galen authored anti-nazi sermons and campaigned against such Hitlerian policies as the euthanasia launched against those though to be surplus to requirements
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ludwig123 | Jun 11, 2011, 05:00 PM EDT
Church and State are separate in this Country and any religious body that violates this basic principal needs to be kicked out of the country, disenfranchised and their tax priviledges taken away from them and their right to function as a religious body removed for 100 years or longer if it comes to that. The right of free speech outweights the restrictions against free religious worship. It seems that most of the religious bodies who are violating the basic rights given us are of the Christian faith of certain denominatons.
The Roman Catholic Church, the Mormon Church and the Southern Baptists as well as certain Pentacostals are the worse violators of this Constitutional law. If this does not stop then no one will have any religious rights because these bodies will be dictating to everyone what their religious beliefs will be and murdering people over religious beliefs as well as burning people at the stake. The Roman Catholic Church is already guilty of this practice--especially during the Spanish Inquisition and most recently in the case of Hitler's Germany in which the Church led its members to falsely believe that Jews were murderers of Christ--one of the principals of Hitler's vendetta against the Jewish religion. It is strange that many of these people have the gaul, temetry and nerve to critize the Taliban, Islam for its actions for violations of their religious tenets and yet what are these same people doing or headed to. The Roman Catholic Church now has violated the gift given them by President Kennedy and it now needs to be closed because they are now the ugly guests who came to dinner and have not left.
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olovely | Jun 11, 2011, 03:06 PM EDT
No, Gerold94' it's important that you admit you're mischaracterizing this article. The author did not call for a loophole to sillence the church, implied or actual. He said that they should pay tax for the right, like any other PAC. You're attempting to frame the debate as an attack on free speech. It is not. If the church decides it wants a political platform - and it clearly has - it should not hide behind it's tax free loopholes.
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Towngate | Jun 11, 2011, 09:37 AM EDT
Who cares? Religions worldwide have tried to influence and blackmail their believers in the realm of politics. Church and State are legally separate, so why does anyone take any notice of what the church says on legal issues. If you agree with them - fine. If you don't - ignore them! Simple. God is supposed to have granted us free will - including to ignore the church and lift our shirts as high as we like!
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Gearoid4 | Jun 11, 2011, 09:37 AM EDT
Perhaps I was overstating the case a bit saying that the author of the above piece wanted the Church to be silenced via the use of tax legislation. But the implication near the end is that Cahir wants some loophole to be explored to act as an obstacle to the legitimate aim of the Church to halt the 'gay-marriage' bandwagon across the US.
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olovely | Jun 11, 2011, 09:09 AM EDT
It does not seem that Cahir wants to 'utilize the tax-status or lack of the Catholic Church to silence opposition to make gay marriage legal'. Shouldn't you read the article before commenting on it, Gearoid4? He said by all means let them comment, like any other political action committee, but let them pay taxes like any other PAC too. That makes sense to me. They are too obviously deeply involved and they are making giant financial contributions and they are doing so without paying a dime to Uncle Sam. That's un-American.
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Gearoid4 | Jun 11, 2011, 08:50 AM EDT
It seems that Cahir wants to utilize the tax-status or lack of the Catholic Church to silence opposition to make gay marriage legal in the various US states. As jnewman right points out the members of the Church both lay and religious are already tax contributors and are only exercising their God-given rights under the American constitution. This 'anti gay' charge that is thrown at conscientious objectors to this legislative push will not wash. They are only acting on their sincerely held belief that marriage is restricted by it's very nature to between one man and one woman.
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jnewnam | Jun 11, 2011, 05:53 AM EDT
Cardinals, bishops, priests and nuns have every right to speak on politics because every one of them are voting citizens of the USA. Every one of them pay personal federal and state income taxes already. I bet that O'Doherty has no problem with the liberals among them speaking on politics or with the ones in heresy with the Catholic Church. Cahir, Cahir, Cahir turns out your an atheists, too.
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jnewnam | Jun 11, 2011, 05:48 AM EDT
By the way, cardinals, bishops, priests and nuns all pay personal federal and state income taxes already.
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jnewnam | Jun 11, 2011, 05:44 AM EDT
Cardinals, bishops and priests have every right to be involved in politics because they are voting citizens of the United States. And I bet that O'Doherty has no problem with cardinals, bishops, priests and nuns involved in politics that are liberal and in heresy with the Catholic Church. Cahir, Cahir, Cahir turns out you are an atheist too.
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