Thursday, April 10, 2008




Repealing churches' tax exemption threatens no one's freedom of religion. If a church sought to rent property from a private owner to conduct religious services but could not afford the rent that the owner was asking, would the church members' freedom to practice their religion have been destroyed? Obviously not: the freedom to practice religion that is guaranteed by the First Amendment does not mean that a religious group has an absolute right to take any property they want for their own use. Church taxation is the same. If a religious group could not afford to pay taxes on property that they owned, this does not mean that this group has been prevented from practicing its religion; it means that the group must seek out a new location to do so, one which they can afford. In the highly unlikely scenario that a church could not find any property whose taxes they could afford to pay, they would still be free to hold services on public property, such as a park, or in their individual members' residences. Even in such a case, no one's freedom of religion has been infringed in any way. The only "right" that is threatened by church taxation is the facetious and imaginary right of a religious group to do anything they want just because they are religious.

... news from the theo-kleptocracy ...


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