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Beto O'Rourke's Threat Re: "Oppos{ing} Same Sex Marriage"


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9 hours ago, Jake Starkey said:

You have the right to believe as you do, yes, but you do not have the authority to enforce your right on others.  Those days are over.

Huh? You may not have noticed, but most of the coercive laws that are hotly debated involve the forcing of a majority's views on the minority. That's kind of how our government is designed to work.

 

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11 hours ago, kllindley said:

I think that any attempt to distinguish "religious political activism" from "political activism" is fallacious.  Why would activism based on religious beliefs be any different from activism based on any other belief or value?

It would be like me saying, "Gee, it's a shame that violence against LGBT continues to happen, but what else can you expect after all that gay activism? Now I'm not saying the LGBT community didn't have the right to be active in promoting their rights, just that the LGBT community cannot control the reaction to their political activism."

Wow.  You really don’t see a difference???. Maybe it is fine if you too believe in the stance your religion is taking. But what if you don’t?  

What if you believe in the civil rights of a gay couple to marry.  What if you believe that families are the building blocks of a community, of a nation, and marriage is an institution that helps build stronger families no matter who you are?  What if you believe that having a companion to share life with is at the core of everyone’s earth experience even if they are not straight

or what if your church believes in supporting gay marriage and you don’t  

What if you are a Democrat and believe in social programs but belong to a religion that supports a party that wants to do away with social programs.  What if you are a Republican and you think welfare is detrimental to individuals?  But your faith campaigns and supports the opposing point of view?

What if you believe a woman has the right to choose and your church believes that is murder?  Or what if you don’t believe in abortion, but your church supports Planned Parenthood?

What if you think a particular candidate is immoral, dishonest and a danger to this country, but your church does all they can legally do to get that candidate elected to public office?

If the political views of your religion align with yours, then you see no problem, in fact you are blind to the issue.   But if your political views do not align with your faith, then what?  Could you keep supporting the beliefs of that religio, or would you just walk away.  The fastest growing religion is no religion.  Surveys show that younger people are far less conservative than a lot of faiths.  They are also the biggest group leaving religion.

if you want a voice in politics, join a political party and do all you can to get your political beliefs passed.  If you want to worship Christ and have a relationship with him, join a religion.  Find  a community that will support your personal beliefs   If you cannot find a faith that supports your personal beliefs, then what/. Do you just walk away from organized religion?  

The fact that you and so many others don’t see a problem in what organized religion is doing to itself is appalling  to me.  If you support the direction religion is headed, then you are right, political activism based on religion is no different than any other political activism. 

 

 

 

Edited by california boy
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11 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Oh, no. You've always been very careful not to say that. You prefer instead to dutifully warn religious people of the repercussions they will almost certainly face if they keep being uppity enough to insist on actually exercising their rights.

Because I DO believe religion has every RIGHT to engage in politics.  I just don’t think it is a wise direction for organized religion to take..  Religion may win some battles , but loose the war.  

You have misrepresented my view.  You are required by board rules to either back up your assertion or withdraw the false accusation.  What I would rather have happen is for you to actually understand my point of view.

 

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20 hours ago, smac97 said:

I'm trying to figure out what conclusions to draw from this...

Thoughts?

From one perspective, denying a tax exemption is a penalty. From another equally valid perspective, granting a tax exemption is a government subsidy. Which perspective is better is based on what should be considered the neutral tax position where everybody is paying their fair share. In a free society with a well-run, small government, the neutral position is for everybody to pay low taxes that are based upon income, with perhaps a little bit of property tax and sales tax sprinkled in for good measure. If you agree with that as a basic starting point of fair and neutral taxation, then tax deductions that distort that neutral position are in fact a form of subsidization.

If a group of people feel motivated to create a religious organization, that is their prerogative in a free society. Let them worship how, what, or where they may. And if they feel motivated to make the world a better place, that is fantastic. But if their religious belief is the real motivator here, why do they need a government subsidy to do what they want to do? 

In our current society, there are huge subsidies to state-approved religion in the form of tax exemptions to churches. The United States is supposed to be a free country that doesn't make any laws with respect to religion. But because of the intense religiosity of so many people, everybody expects the government to subsidize religion with tax breaks and gets upset at the notion of this subsidy being taken away. In our current society, the IRS has guidelines for determining whether any given church meets the requirement for tax exemption. But why should we be paying the IRS to determine what churches should receive the tax break and which should not? And how could a structure that requires this possibly be constitutional?

All tax exemptions are a form of subsidy. The government subsidizes me for having a mortgage with the mortgage interest deduction. But why should the government be in the business of subsidizing people who choose to take on massive debt? And why should people without mortgages have to pay higher taxes to make up for the shortfall in revenue? Various tax-exempt organizations do various things that may or may not make the world a better place. But shouldn't we the people be a lot more judicious about which ones do something so fundamentally amazing that they deserve to be subsidized with our precious tax dollars? Why not make subsidies rare and lower everybody's taxes instead?

Given the extreme predispositions of way too many powerful people, it is impossible to conceive of the Supreme Court ever judging correctly on this and ending the subsidization of IRS-approved religions. And for the same reason, calling for the end of subsidization of religion is a losing political position. But that doesn't mean that a clear-headed reading of the Constitution doesn't make it clear that it is unconstitutional to subsidize religion.

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59 minutes ago, Amulek said:

Huh? You may not have noticed, but most of the coercive laws that are hotly debated involve the forcing of a majority's views on the minority. That's kind of how our government is designed to work.

 

If that is true, then why are you complaining about it.

The wheel has turned, as it always does.

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1 minute ago, Analytics said:

From one perspective, denying a tax exemption is a penalty.

C'mon.  Mr. O'Rourke's threat is a "penalty" from every perspective.

1 minute ago, Analytics said:

From another equally valid perspective, granting a tax exemption is a government subsidy.

And case law holds that withdrawing or revoking such an exemption for a group that otherwise qualifies for it, based on that group's viewpoint, is viewpoint discrimination.  That's unconstitutional.

1 minute ago, Analytics said:

Which perspective is better is based on what should be considered the neutral tax position where everybody is paying their fair share.

I don't think this issue is a matter of differing perspectives.  Mr. O'Rourke is threatening to revoke tax exemptions for religious groups because of their religious beliefs.  Because of the content of their speech.  He is proposing to punish them, and to use the government to do it.

1 minute ago, Analytics said:

In our current society, there are huge subsidies to state-approved religion in the form of tax exemptions to churches.

There are plenty of secular non-profit organizations as well.  Do you propose that they be stripped of tax exemptions as well?  Or is it only religious groups?

1 minute ago, Analytics said:

All tax exemptions are a form of subsidy. The government subsidizes me for having a mortgage with the mortgage interest deduction.

Then singling out the purported "subsidies" that pertain only to religious groups seems particularly invidious.

1 minute ago, Analytics said:

Given the extreme predispositions of way too many powerful people, it is impossible to conceive of the Supreme Court ever judging correctly on this and ending the subsidization of IRS-approved religions. And for the same reason, calling for the end of subsidization of religion is a losing political position. But that doesn't mean that a clear-headed reading of the Constitution doesn't make it clear that it is unconstitutional to subsidize religion.

By your own admission, pretty much everyone is - in your view - "subsidized" because pretty much everyon has a way of reducing or eliminating their tax obligation.

Thanks,

-Smac

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1 minute ago, Jake Starkey said:

I believe religious tax exempt status should be ended if a religious entity politics at all.

No religious organization has a constitutional right to a tax exempt status.

We the People leges make those determinations.

What about organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club? Should they lose their tax exempt status when they engage in politics?

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19 minutes ago, kllindley said:

What about organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club? Should they lose their tax exempt status when they engage in politics?

That would be the responsibility of the legislature to make such determination.

The legislature could, as it already has, exclude government money to finance abortions.

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6 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Why?  Why are you singling out religion and not other tax-exempt organizations?

1. I can do so legally and constitutionally.

2. Religion is protected as a private right to association, thus when it crosses into public affairs, it can be regulated in terms of public money subsidies.

3. Religion should never interfere with affairs of state, the public world.

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5 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

No, not at all. But it does mean that the horribleness is larger than a single individual and is unlikely to just go away when that individual goes away.

 

True, and this is a curse in more areas than just this one. I would be curious how pervasive this particular belief is. No polls I found. I hope it is a fringe belief. Most Democrats realize that, even from a purely political image thing that removing tax exemption would be disastrous. It could drive minority churchgoers out of support of the party and would throw the more moderate churches to support the GOP for purely mercenary reasons.

Did find Trump bragging that he got rid of the Johnson Amendment when he did not. Big surprise there. Still a moron. Repealing the amendment would allow churches to become the equivalent of Super-PACs as well with legislation protecting disclosure. Repealing it without changing campaign finance laws would be opening all kinds of loopholes in campaign finance.

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26 minutes ago, Jake Starkey said:

1. I can do so legally and constitutionally.

Wasn't saying you couldn't.  Just interested

26 minutes ago, Jake Starkey said:

2. Religion is protected as a private right to association, thus when it crosses into public affairs, it can be regulated in terms of public money subsidies.

It can.  The government has chosen not to tax religious organizations.  I would not, personally, call this a subsidy.

 

26 minutes ago, Jake Starkey said:

. Religion should never interfere with affairs of state, the public world.

Why?  Why should religion not have a voice in the public sphere?

Edited by ksfisher
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I feel people here are getting the terms tax exempt organizations confused with public chariies. They are too very different terms.

The democratic party and the Republican party are both taxe exempt. And they do nothing but practice politics.

What is at issue is the deductibility of contributions to the organization under IRC 170 or other provisions of the code 

 

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8 minutes ago, smac97 said:

C'mon.  Mr. O'Rourke's threat is a "penalty" from every perspective.

If you don't want to consider any other perspectives, why did you ask for our thoughts?

 

8 minutes ago, smac97 said:

And case law holds that withdrawing or revoking such an exemption for a group that otherwise qualifies for it, based on that group's viewpoint, is viewpoint discrimination.  That's unconstitutional.

Perhaps, but I'm suggesting we look at the bigger issue of whether the exemption is Constitutional in the first place.

 

8 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I don't think this issue is a matter of differing perspectives.  Mr. O'Rourke is threatening to revoke tax exemptions for religious groups because of their religious beliefs.  Because of the content of their speech.  He is proposing to punish them, and to use the government to do it.

If you'd like to give him the benefit of clarifying what his actual position is, he subsequently said:

“The way that you practice your religion or your faith within that mosque or that temple or synagogue or church, that is your business, and not the government's business,” he said. “But when you are providing services in the public sphere, say, higher education, or health care, or adoption services, and you discriminate or deny equal treatment under the law based on someone's skin color or ethnicity or gender or sexual orientation, then we have a problem.”

That doesn't seem to be "viewpoint discrimination." Rather, it is saying that if you want to provide services in the public square and want to discriminate you are totally free to do so--just don't expect the government to subsidize you doing it. I tend to agree with that. For example, if LDS Family Services or a Catholic charity or whomever wants to help broker adoptions but wants to discriminate on whom it helps based on their religious convictions, they are totally free to do so. But the government shouldn't necessarily subsidize these enterprises. 

 

8 minutes ago, smac97 said:

There are plenty of secular non-profit organizations as well.  Do you propose that they be stripped of tax exemptions as well?  Or is it only religious groups?

What do you think I meant when I said, "Various tax-exempt organizations do various things that may or may not make the world a better place. But shouldn't we the people be a lot more judicious about which ones do something so fundamentally amazing that they deserve to be subsidized with our precious tax dollars? Why not make subsidies rare and lower everybody's taxes instead? "

 

8 minutes ago, smac97 said:

By your own admission, pretty much everyone is - in your view - "subsidized" because pretty much everyon has a way of reducing or eliminating their tax obligation.

Of course. I'm totally free to pay 10% of my money to any church on the IRS's list of approved Churches. I'm totally free to buy the most expensive house I possibly can with the absolute biggest mortgage I can be granted. And give my money to the tax-exempt charity of my choice, regardless of whether it does anything that is actually beneficial to society or not.

The issue isn't whether or not "pretty much everyone" can receive the incentives and subsidizations that the tax code offers. The issue is whether those incentives should be offered in the first place. And more fundamentally, just because the group of religions that the government subsidizes with tax exemptions is extremely broad doesn't mean that subsidizing them is Constitutional. 

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15 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Wasn't saying you couldn't.  Just interested

It can.  The government has chosen not to tax religious organizations.  I would not, personally, call this a subsidy.

 

Why? 

Separation of church and state.  That does not mean a legislator's private values do not inform his or her actions, but he is acting as a representative of the people's will not that of a church.

Why would you support tax-exempt status for a religious entity?

Edited by Jake Starkey
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45 minutes ago, kllindley said:

What about organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club? Should they lose their tax exempt status when they engage in politics?

They don’t. There is a separate organization called the Planned Parent Action Fund that is a 501c4 unlike the more commonly known organization which is a 501c3. 501c4s do not pay taxes but their donations are not tax exempt. They can engage in politics directly related to what they do but money collected for that purpose is taxable and usually donations are disclosed. Both work with the parent organization, the IPPF, which is the global equivalent of Planned Parenthood which has about 200 associated organizations, most individual to specific regions or nations. Having two separate organizations is common. The ACLU is set up the same way. So is Focus on the Family.

The Sierra club is entirely a 501c4 organization.

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59 minutes ago, Jake Starkey said:

If that is true, then why are you complaining about it.

The wheel has turned, as it always does.

Perhaps I misunderstood the point you were trying to make earlier.

When you said, "You have the right to believe as you do, yes, but you do not have the authority to enforce your right on others. Those days are over."

The bygone days which I took you to be referring to were the days where religious believers had the authority to enforce their beliefs on others.

That didn't make sense to me though, because religious believers still have the "authority" to force their beliefs on others - same as anyone else. 

If you just mean to say, however, that religious believers do not have the same level of power or influence as they had in the past, then sure - I think we would be in agreement on that. 

 

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12 minutes ago, Jake Starkey said:

Separation of church and state. 

There is nothing in the constitution that prohibits religious organizations from engaging in public discourse.

 

13 minutes ago, Jake Starkey said:

Why would you support tax-exempt status for a religious entity?

Religious and charitable organizations have traditionally been valued for their positive contributions to society.  Holding a tax exempt status allows those organizations to concentrate on their mission, rather than earning money to pay taxes.  I support this. 

Charitable organizations are financed by free will donations.  If you were, for example, to donate to United Way, Catholic charities, or the fast offering fund would you want a portion of that donation to go to the government? 

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41 minutes ago, Jake Starkey said:

Religion should never interfere with affairs of state, the public world.

That's too bad. Because many important political movements - the antislavery movement, the civil rights movement, and various antiwar movements - were composed in large part of religious people who acted for explicitly religious reasons, and justified their positions using explicitly religious arguments.

Would you say that opposition to slavery was illegitimate because it was mostly overtly religious? Or that our country would have been better off had the religionists "never interfere[d]"?

 

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51 minutes ago, Jake Starkey said:

1. I can do so legally and constitutionally.

2. Religion is protected as a private right to association, thus when it crosses into public affairs, it can be regulated in terms of public money subsidies.

3. Religion should never interfere with affairs of state, the public world.

1. Yes.

2. True.

3. No, the freedom of religion amendment is designed to protect churches from the government and to prevent government sponsorship of a denomination. The idea that churches should stay out of politics is a recent trend. Do you think Martin Luther King should have been shut up? They tried to use tax law against him.

Edited by The Nehor
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4 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

The Westboro Baptist Church is also tax-exempt. It saddens me to think that I am subsidizing their protests at military funerals.

ETA: I'm not really taking a position here. I'm just saying it saddens me.

The recharacterization as a subsidy is a little disingeuous. Churches and charitable organizations have been tax exempt since the United States was founded. At this point saying the exemption is a subsidy implies that the government granted it as a favor when it is just “how it has always been”. I am also not convinced that fiscally the Catholic Church (or any Church) is in the same category as a Wal-Mart or Amazon.

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I haven’t read this whole thread, but there are a few questions I have:

It seems religious organizations are often threatened with their tax exempt status for getting involved with political issues. Why is this, and why are religious organizations the only ones threatened with this? Many organizations, in fact I’d guess the vast majority, that are not companies but are involved in politics are non-profit and tax exempt. Nobody threatens them. For instance, Planned Parenthood not only is tax-exempt, involved in politics, and never threatened with losing that status, but it’s often viewed unconscionable to suggest even cutting funding, let alone suggest removing tax-exempt status. 

But, more importantly, do you know what else is tax-exempt and involved in politics? The Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee. So if someone feels religious organizations getting involved it politics should qualify them to lose tax-exempt status, please provide a cogent argument on why we say this about religious organizations but literally no other tax-exempt organizations, even those whose sole purpose is politics.

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4 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

The recharacterization as a subsidy is a little disingeuous. Churches and charitable organizations have been tax exempt since the United States was founded. At this point saying the exemption is a subsidy implies that the government granted it as a favor when it is just “how it has always been”. I am also not convinced that fiscally the Catholic Church (or any Church) is in the same category as a Wal-Mart or Amazon.

Whether or not it is a "a favor" or whether it's just always been that way has no bearing on whether or not it is a subsidy.

Granted, there are different ways of doing the mental accounting, and some people think that lowering somebody's taxes by $1 if they do x is fundamentally different than the government giving them $1 if they do x. But in terms of net dollars and cents, it is identical.

That said, whether or not tax breaks are subsidies shouldn't be a controversial idea and in the world of finance, it isn't. For your consideration, here is what Wikipedia says:

Quote

 

Government can create the same outcome through selective tax breaks as through cash payment. For example, suppose a government sends monetary assistance that reimburses 15% of all health expenditures to a group that is paying 15% income tax. Exactly the same subsidy is achieved by giving a health tax deduction. Tax subsidies are also known as tax expenditures.

Tax breaks are often considered to be a subsidy. Like other subsidies, they distort the economy; but tax breaks are also less transparent, and are difficult to undo.

 

 

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