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The Stand in Iowa
I suppose we could at least say “We told you so,” though I fear the phrase has lost the sense of smug, self-satisfaction it had when we were younger. Now, I once again see myself empathizing with Jeremiah, who had to constantly tell the people of Jerusalem how bad things would get while competing with many false prophets, even as things went exactly as Jeremiah predicted.
If anything, the current situation in Iowa only confirms what had been long predicted: The government — through bureaucracy and extralegal panels — has moved to compel religious organizations (including churches) to comply with the new progressive political morality. The religious concession supposedly in the laws isn’t even that, as a government hostile to religion and religious thought is now in the business of deciding what constitutes a legitimate religion. The more vocal and aggressive wing of the LGBT movement controls both that movement as well as the media. They will suffer no opposition, and require endorsement. Everything not forbidden is compulsory.
The [Iowa Civil Rights Commission] is interpreting a state law to ban churches from expressing their views on human sexuality if they would “directly or indirectly” make “persons of any particular…gender identity” feel “unwelcome” in conjunction with church services, events, and other religious activities. The speech ban could be used to gag churches from making any public comments—including from the pulpit—that could be viewed as unwelcome to persons who do not identify with their biological sex. This is because the commission says the law applies to churches during any activity that the commission deems to not have a “bona fide religious purpose.” Examples the commission gave are “a child care facility operated at a church or a church service open to the public,” which encompasses most events that churches hold.
The live-and-let-live crowd was either dangerously naïve or dishonest from the get-go. The progressives had no intention of allowing anyone to think other than how they required. When progressives hold power, they are the sole arbiters of what is right and wrong, of who is innocent and who is guilty. The fact that the church yields to an authority greater than Man is unacceptable. First, society must yield to progressive moral pressure, then the schools, and now the church. Soon, the family will follow, losing any rights before an ever-expanding progressive state.
Religious liberty is now where we stand, and the progressives are acting the aggressors.
Published in Law
I don’t understand this. Ed asks about charitable lemonade money compared to lemonade money for the benefit of investors, and I think you answered with a question about something different.
Wait a second. If a church does a service which in itself can be done non-religiously (day-care, medical care, homeless shelter, crisis pregnancy center), etc., it’s still a religious activity when done by the church. The church does it for religious reasons (as almsgiving, for example).
When the Obama administration exempted churches but not their schools or hospitals from the birth control mandate, it was the same thing: prohibition of the free exercise of a religion that requires almsgiving, charity, or education.
(At least I think it was the same thing. I’d like to think I simply misunderstood you.)
Exactly. Ed was the one who raised the whole charitable giving issue. That was never my point. 501 status exempts all income.
Or, more simply, the lemonade profits are treated as normal income and the donation is treated like any other charitable donation, ie…as a tax deduction subject to the applicable tax law.
Why does Iowa need a Human Rights Commission? What do they do that is not redundant of other Iowa agencies, such as the state attorney general ?
Isn’t this just a sham to get Iowa taxpayers to support a group of Leftist community organizers with bureaucratic powers to punish their opponents in the culture wars?
What in the history of the left and its well documented antipathy to free speech, religion writ large, and Christianity in particular makes you think such a thing?
Right, but only under the assumption that that income is being used for the charitable purpose engendering the exemption in the first place. In addition, Unrelated Business Income is taxable. So am I undertstanding correctly that you don’t distinguish between sales from a lemonade stand for charitable purposes vs selling lemonade to the profit of the owners?
Let alone the specific question of churches, I’m struggling to see how this is consistent with Hobby Lobby.
Perhaps this is a better distillation: should my kid’s charitable lemonade stand be taxed the same as Minute Maid selling millions of gallons of lemonade for profit? Is it illicit social engineering to treat these as different in kind?
On the contrary, I believe you first said something about charitable giving when you said (categorically) that tax exemption constitutes government largess.
So what are you talking about here? I believe 501 status exempts a corporation (and/or an organization) from corporate taxes.
Income, if I’m not mistaken, is a separate issue, and no one’s income is affected by 501 status.
I do indeed see the difference there. None if that matters to my original point which is that if you are going to accept the benefit of 501 status then you accept the costs and shouldn’t be surprised when the government adds new stipulations (and whether or not they’re consistent with the original “intent” is neither here nor there, the reality is that government changes rules whenever it feels like it). If those costs and the corresponding intrusion are unacceptable then don’t apply for 501 status in the first place.
I don’t think anyone’s objected to this point so far. But I think the way you made it entailed (or at least could be taken to suggest) other points which were . . . less solid.
Agreed, except when those stipulations and intrusions amount to infringements of other constitutional rights like free exercise of religion. I don’t think constitutional rights are completely unconditional, though, so I’m not offended when public good clashes with individual rights and I don’t reflexively side one way or the other. I just think that the case for the stipulations and intrusions should be pretty strong and clear in order to overcome otherwise constitutional protections – the 1st amendment should be presumed superior unless a positive case is made for instance: polygamy. Also, constitutional protections should be at least admissible defenses to civil infractions.