Reply #263: You're confusing two issues -- [View All]

[defendandprotect]

First, we are saying that the attack on Kennedy is "political" -- and of course it is.
Do they have a right under our Constitution to excommunicate a member or bar them from
service -- of course. It is an attempt by the RCC to try to intimidate other Catholic
members who support Roe vs Wade and abortion and birth control.
Political . . . yes. A tax-exempt status concern . . . no.

OK . . . ?

What we are saying is there have been MANY intrusions into state affairs which require
that they lose their tax-exempt status --

The Pope telling American Catholics that it would be a sin to vote for Kerry, would be one.

They are free, of course, to speak out as much as they want against abortion -- but killing
doctors and/or specifically suggesting that one American candidate or another is NOT to be
voted for is different.

The RCC and Mormon churches' stealth campaign against the ERA with tax-exempt dollars would
be another --

The RCC/Mormon Church financing of a campaign re Prop 8 with tax exempt dollar would be another.

The RCC/Mormon Church financing of a campaign against the Maine referendum on homosexual marriage
would be yet another --


And re Martin Luther King, Jr --

Was the Southern Christian Leadership Conference a "church"?

Or were they individuals who were calling African-American Christians forward to fight
for their civil rights?

Was it done openly? Did it use "church" money for the campaigns or did they rely on contributions?

Was it a dictatorship where they were insisting that ALL members of these churches had to participate?

And did they specifically tell voters whom to vote for or against?

by your "logic", those black churches were "interfering in state affairs". they certainly did far more to interfere in state affairs than the catholic church is doing by authorizing their authority over membership. get real.

Again -- there is no problem with the church speaking publickly against women's rights, or
homosexual rights -- the problem is financing a stealth campaign against a Federal or State issue --with tax-exempt dollars.

Nor is there EVER any problem with anyone advocating for human rights --

civil rights, right to health care, right to shelter, right to food.

It is a problem, however, when a male-supremacist church wants to LIMIT the rights of women and
their reproductive freedom.

Or LIMIT the rights of homosexuals -- or anyone else.

There are rarely any concerns with EXPANDING RIGHTS -- LIMITING THEM IS ANOTHER ISSUE.

And . . .

I know the MLK, Jr. comparison is a favorite old right wing tactic -- but it doesn't wash.


FURTHER . . . to summarize this movement to tax the churches, in any case -- no church's

total assets should be tax exempt. A church and its surrounding property and its soup kitchens

should be tax-exempt. NOT all of a Church's real estate holdings -- nor it's stock portfolios.

THAT'S the bottom line in this issue --