Hey you guyyyyyys. It hurts the Catholic Church’s feelings when 75,000 of you (!) campaign to strip the religious group of its tax-exempt status just because it decided to get involved in Maine’s Question 1. If you succeed, a good portion of all this Jesus-based hatred funding will, like, have to go to the state government! Which means education programs, health care, food banks, homeless shelters, and road construction will be paid for by marriage equality foes. Oh. Then, uh, keep it up?
Do 75,000 Of You Really Want to Strip the Catholic Church of Tax-Exempt Status?
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romeo
ALL churches should be stripped of tax exempt status except for those funds used directly for bona fide community service. And they’re books need to be examined thoroughly.
romeo
scuse me, “their”
1EqualityUSA
The Catholic Church is abusing the Separation of Church and State and therefore, they should be stripped of Tax-exempt status. Queers should fork over 25 bucks to join Americans United for Separation of Church and State too. When will this abuse of power end? Why should we fund a Church that works against the Constitutionally guaranteed rights to liberty and pursuit of happiness? Seaparation of Church and Stateis good for believers and non-believers alike.
John
yeh, tax them.
christopher di spirito
The U.S. either has, or is about to, raise the debt ceiling to 12.5 trillion dollars — a staggering amount that will never be repaid.
One possible step toward reducing the national debt is to eliminate the tax exemptions for all organized religion. Do you know, when the Mormons sell a building in Manhattan, or Chicago, or Miami, they don’t pay any capital gains taxes on the sale?
This is criminal on the merits. So, huge cults/churches like the Mormons and the Catholics are free to funnel this coin into support of antigay ballot measures across the country as they did in California and Maine.
This shizz has go to stop.
Qjersey
The facebook group is already up to 96,000 members!
Churches can advise their flocks to follow church teachings without specifically mentioning a particular voter initiative or political issue in order to avoid the separation of church and state thing. However having special collections to raise money to fight for or against any particular issue is against the law.
I’m sure Jesus would have rather seen the money go to feeding the poor.
Scot
WHERE DO I SOHN UP?
Scot
Let’s try that again – WHERE DO I SIGN UP?
Give us a url so we can add our names to any online petitions, please.
vernonvanderbilt
Hell yes, they should lose their tax-exempt status. I don’t see it happening, but they absolutely should.
And what happened to the Facebook group? I joined it last weekish but it’s not showing up on my profile anymore. Was it deleted or something? Is there a new one I can join? Can anyone point me in the right direction?
naghanenu
Yeah coz a few hundred thousand people on Facebook will make a difference.
Why not put that energy into good use and get LGBT youths starving on the streets some help.
edgyguy1426
Why not do both? Why does one act here assume to preclude another unrelated act?
B
I’d give them a tax break on real community service, treat them like an arts organization for their religious stuff, and tax them on any political activities.
If Puccini can set the first act of Tosca in a church, why should an actual church get more or less of a tax break than an opera company? After all, without some actual churches around, the final scene, with a chorus singing the Te Deum as a background to Scarpia singing about his carnal lust for Tosca, would not have the same impact for an audience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STbke4zlAEM
romeo
@B #12: Love it that your throwing grand opera into the mix. Finally it’s getting gay in here! LOL
Tosca’s my favorite BTW. Close second “Il Trovatore.” But there’s nothing like a 280 pound soprano throwing herself off a building. Now that’s a fucking OPERA! Oh, and the music’s beautiful, too.
Ben
Where do we sign up?!
1EqualityUSA
Romeo & B, Mozart’s “Idomeneo” Luciano Pavrotti, Gruberova, Baltsa, Popp, and Nucci, with Sir John Pritchard conducting is a good one too. It was impossible to find in the U.S. a few years back, new or used, so I had to go through a gal in Germany. Now that the economy went down hill, people are letting it go, selling it. Decca Records LONDON 411 805-2 (3 disc set) Worth your while, gents.
chelesley
I wanna sign…..The catholic church is evil, evil…..Look up the Vatican’s Holocaust on youtube.
I’m done with kiddie fuckers ruining the world!
ricky
ALL churches should have their tax exempt status revoked.
christopher di spirito
Here is the link to the Facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?filter=app_2361831622#/pages/Revocation-of-tax-exempt-status-from-churches-engaging-in-political-action/165171987858?ref=ts
InExile
It’s time for churches to pay their fair share. Once they step into our government, they become political organizations.
chris
During the French Revolution they stripped the Church of its powers and privileges….it ended pretty damned badly then and it’ll end badly now.
One step at a time folks. Equality first, punishing of bigots second.
B
Romeo wrote, “But there’s nothing like a 280 pound soprano throwing herself off a building.” Did you ever hear about the time (think it was the NY City Opera) where the soprano was being too much of a diva and causing way too much drama on the set? It seems the stage hands got rather upset at her, so they tightened the trampoline she was supposed to land on. She sang “Scarpia, avanti a Dio”, jumped, and bounced back into sight of the audience multiple times.
Just like Biblical stories, this one probably got better and better – i.e., more and more outrageous – as it spread through the grapevine.
1EqualityUSA
Too bad Hebrews didn’t have Queerty to communicate to each other by the camp fires. Oral history tends to stretch out of shape over the centuries.
done4goodbutnot4you
@1equalityunitedunderhate
Disgusting anti-semitism there and please dont tell me you’re jewish. i dont care if you’ve been circumcised….
Learn about the Holocaust, maybe then you won’t eat your feet on blogs.
calamity
@done4goodbutnot4you
obviously, you misunderstood what he was saying.
that was not a holocaust reference, it was a reference to the Hebrews who were around in the time of jesus.
So um. Get off that horse.
1EqualityUSA
Dear done4goodbutnot4you, You misunderstood. I was referring to mishna. No disrespect nor reference to Holocaust was meant. Irony of having laptops in ancient times appealed to me, simply.
B
1EqualityUSA wrote “Irony of having laptops in ancient times appealed to me, simply.” … if they had had laptops and a fast Internet connection, those distortions that took place over centuries would take place in a week! Our modern technology distributes misinformation as efficiently as accurate information. Just look at the “birthers” – “I saw it on the Internet so it must be true.”
I wouldn’t take it specifically as a reference to “Hebrews who were around in the time of Jesus” as “Calamity” said – the process would be the same for just about every culture.
Robert, NYC
The argument to abolish tax-exempt status is quite simple. The religious cults enjoy full representation without taxation, whereas WE get NO full representation with heavy taxation (unconstitutional). Either we all get behind abolishing [their] special rights and privileges which puts them above the law (undemocratic) or we demand tax exemption as a voting bloc based on the fact that we’re being taxed without fair and full representation.
1EqualityUSA
From the desk of Barry W. Lynn
forward this message
The 2009 “Values Voter Summit” in Washington D.C. was a battle cry from the Religious Right to its followers across the country. Americans United sent several staffers to sit in on the summit, and they reported that it was clear the speakers’ main intention was to spark anger towards the current administration and galvanize activists for a new front in the “culture wars.”
The rhetoric was frequently quite extreme. One speaker attacked church-state separation as an idea dreamed up by Hitler. Several called for ending all public support for family planning. Others insisted that Religious Right activists need to “take back” America.
You can give AU the resources we need to stand up to this radical movement, by joining AU’s Madison Society monthly giving program or making a one-time donation today.
Workshops at the Values Voter Summit included:
True Tolerance: Countering the Homosexual Agenda in Public Schools
Marriage: Why It’s Worth Defending and how Redefining it Threatens Religious Liberty
Obamacare: Rationing Your Life Away
These workshops and numerous others like them were extended attacks on LGBT Americans, public education, secular health care and true religious liberty, and provided training to “values voters” to push for public policy dictated by fundamentalist religion.
The report sent to me by the AU staffers who attended the summit concluded: “In the coming months, we can expect a surge in Religious Right activity as leaders and activists demonize health-care reform in favor of faith-based policies, challenge federal laws that protect citizens from religious discrimination, and preach far and wide for a wave of new activism and plans to reach the next generation.” We must do all we can to deflect these attacks on the church-state wall.
Please help equip Americans United for the task, by becoming a monthly donor or making a one-time contribution today!
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
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