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Townhall
It Begins: New
Calls To Strip Churches of Tax Exempt Status After Same-Sex Marriage
Ruling
Katie Pavlich
Jun 29, 2015
For years conservatives and proponents of religious liberty in America
have warned that if same-sex marriage became legal, the left would then
pursue revoking the tax exempt status for religious institutions,
particularly Christian churches, around the country.
Just days after the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that gay
marriage is a constitutional right, progressive activists like Mark
Oppenheimer of the New York Times are calling for tax exempt statutes
to be stripped.
The Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage makes it clearer than ever
that the government shouldn't be subsidizing religion and non-profits.
Rather than try to rescue tax-exempt status for organizations that
dissent from settled public policy on matters of race or sexuality, we
need to take a more radical step. It’s time to abolish, or greatly
diminish, their tax-exempt statuses.
Defenders of tax exemptions and deductions argues that if we got rid of
them charitable giving would drop. It surely would, although how much,
we can’t say. But of course government revenue would go up, and that
money could be used to, say, house the homeless and feed the hungry.
We’d have fewer church soup kitchens — but countries that truly care
about poverty don’t rely on churches to run soup kitchens.
So yes, the logic of gay-marriage rights could lead to a reexamination
of conservative churches’ tax exemptions (although, as long as the IRS
is afraid of challenging Scientology’s exemption, everyone else is
probably safe). But when that day comes, it will be long overdue. I can
see keeping some exemptions; hospitals, in particular, are an
indispensable, and noncontroversial, public good. And localities could
always carve out sensible property-tax exceptions for nonprofits their
communities need. But it’s time for most nonprofits, like those of us
who faithfully cut checks to them, to pay their fair share.
Incredible...
Read the rest of the article at Townhall
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