Catholic Bishops flex muscle, see opportunities

[JohnWxy]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20091123/pl_politico/29829_1

Emboldened by their success in inserting restrictive abortion language into the House health care bill, Roman Catholic bishops say they’ve found a lobbying model that could provide them a louder voice in future policy debates.

~~
~~

Success in the House came after the church ran a classic lobbying operation: deploying paid staff to Capitol Hill, tapping influential bishops to make private appeals to key congressional leaders and distributing bulletin inserts to 19,000 parishes with easy instructions — and sample wording — for sending a message to local representatives.

[graywarrior]

1. Remove their tax status.

All of it. Take their lush property in Gloucester and turn it over to the residents. Bastids.

[Fearless]

5. Agreed. +1000

[JohnWxy]

6. A very good idea. I'm going to start emailing Senators, Congressmen and WH with that one!

[DebbieCDC]

2. Exactly

Tell them to stay the fuck out or they lose ALL tax exempt status. You'll see a different tune when they have to start paying property tax on those churches and taxes on their income. It's long PAST time for this country to stop subsidizing religion through tax breaks.

[tularetom]

3. If only they were so diligent in weeding out the pervs in their midst

[damntexdem]

4. Then the IRS should give them a charlie horse.

Give ALL fundies cramps when they try flexing political muscles through their churches!