You might think, looking at my past writings, that I am unilaterally opposed to religion and therefore don’t support freedom of religion.
This is simply not true. I support freedom of religion, but what I support even more is freedom from religion, which I think must be integral concepts. When those two come in conflict, freedom from religion is more critical, because that is the ultimate form of religious freedom.
That’s not really what this post is about, save that, one of the areas that yanks my chain is the tax-exemption granted to churches. It’s perfectly acceptable to give all your money and possessions to a church and go live in a cardboard box, for all I care, but I, as the taxpayer, shouldn’t be footing the tax burden. I am not free from religion because of this travesty of law.
Churches have had a free ride in this country for far, far too long.
Supporting errant nonsense like this is bad enough, but what’s worse is the even slimier scumbags who have combined a massively gullible audience and church tax advantages to make themselves fabulously wealthy and avoiding proper accountability and taxation. This abuse has been obvious for years, and the perpetrators don’t even bother to try to hide it.
They drive around in $350,000 Bentleys (which are really owned by the ministry, and therefore tax-exempt) and live in multi-million dollar homes (that are really just church properties, and therefore tax-exempt) or take luxury vacations at exotic spots (while doing so-called “missionary workâ€, so their expenses are paid for by their church, and therefore tax-exempt.) It’s completely and utterly wrong.
Worse, this has been going on for years, and it has been completely ignored by the authorities. They don’t want to step on toes who will shout, “You’re repressing my church! That’s a violation of our rights of freedom of religion!!!!!†In the past, that’s been enough, and so people like me are shouldered with a higher tax burden.
Without the exemptions, you can look at it one of two ways, my taxes would be less (and I wouldn’t be forced to support religion), or there would be more available tax revenue to pay for public services (which benefit people regardless of their religion.) Either way, the churches get a free ride at my expense.
Well, the hopeful news is, from a story on Alternet, Senator Grassley, R-Iowa, has noticed these slimy buggers, and has turned the Senate’s attention towards them.
To give a couple examples from the article
Benny Hinn, a TV preacher who runs the World Healing Center Church in Grapevine, Texas. Hinn, who travels the globe conducting faith-healing revivals, lives in a seven-bathroom, eight-bedroom mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean valued at $10 million. It is claimed as a parsonage.
Joyce Meyer Ministries in Fenton, Mo. Grassley asks Meyer and her husband David to explain expenditures like a $23,000 commode with a marble top, a $30,000 conference table, an $11,000 French clock and a $19,000 pair of vases for the ministry headquarters.
The money quote has to be from “Bishop†Eddie Long, “I pastor a multimillion dollar congregation. You’ve got to put me on a different scale than the little black preacher sitting over there that’s supposed to be just getting by because the people are suffering.†It’s unclear to me, but I think he might have been quoting Jesus when he said that.
Before yesterday, I’d never heard of Alternet, so I did some further checking, and found at least one article confirming this on ABC News, so I think it’s a real story. The disturbing, but not surprising, development is that some are refusing to cooperate sighting violations of religious freedom.
The disturbing part is, what they’re doing is so disgusting unethical as to be unconscionable, but it’s probably not illegal.
We can hope that Sen. Grassley’s inquiries will ultimately lead to a revocation of the tax-exempt status for all churches, or at the very least, accountability to the tax-payers with at least the same level of oversight as other “charitable†organizations.
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