The leader of an atheist group sued because she didn't believe she qualified for tax exemptions afforded to clergy. When the government says she does qualify - as a minister - she got even angrier.
"We are not ministers," Annie Laurie Gaylor, chief of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, told The Tennessean newspaper. "We are having to tell the government the obvious -- we are not a church."
The lawsuit is over the personage exemption for clergy, which allows ministers to claim part of their salary as a tax-free housing allowance.
Gaylor's Madison, Wisc.-based group is organized, united by faith that there is no deity, and essentially builds fellowship around those beliefs. Thus, the Department of Justice filed a brief stating that Gaylor, as the group's leader, is eligible for the exemption since atheist groups can essentially function as a religion.
That complicates the foundation's federal lawsuit, first filed in 2009, after the foundation board voted to give Gaylor and her husband Dan Barker a housing allowance of $15,000 per year. The couple then claimed they didn't qualify for the same tax exemption as clergy so the foundation sued the federal government. In August 2012, a federal judge ruled the case can move forward.
But the Justice Department contends that since Buddhism or Taoism don't include a belief in God and are still considered religions, atheism could qualify as well. Thus, a minister can be seen as a spiritual leader and provide services for a religious organization - and a belief in God isn't legally necessary.
"Plaintiffs may not presume that a law's reference to religion necessarily excludes beliefs that are specifically non-theistic in nature," the government argued in a motion to dismiss the suit.
Gaylor contested, "That's not what we are after."
Now imagine, just for a moment, imagine a Christian church arguing to give back a tax exemption.
Can't do it can you?
That's right because the Christian religions is basically a business who is often focused on bringing in as many dollars as possible, and avoid having to pay out as many dollars as possible.
Now if you will excuse me I have to spend the rest of the day walking around with an overinflated sense of superiority.
I'm thinking G is going to be impossible for the next few days. -:)
ReplyDeleteGryphen...Now imagine, just for a moment, imagine a Christian church arguing to give back a tax exemption.
ReplyDeleteCan't do it can you?
Response: I can. My church pays it's property taxes, even though they are exempt. I don't know about hte rest of hte stuff. Not all Christians are bad people, and some atheists pigeon-hole Christians. Come to think of it, how do you define a Christian? Someone who says they are christian? or just those who believe? or someone who regularly/somtimes attends a Christian church? someone who prays? people who go to church for all kinds of reasons, and religious beliefs isn't always it.
I guess my question for you is why? Why go to church? Do you believe in god? Do you believe any of the biblical stuff? I know that there is a great possibility that Jesus was an actual person that walked the face of this earth and attempted to do good deeds, as a human and as a good person. Is that your grounding? Believing in just Jesus and him being a good person? You seem on the fence to me.
DeleteI actually don't go to church often. I'm still on the rolls. Don't care enough to take myself off. My husband goes to the. I think they do good things.
DeleteI'm not on the fence as much as I don't have much stake in the question. I sometimes regret that but I can't conjure the excitement.
I know an awful lot of people who self-identify as Christians that don't match the definitions I hear on this blog. And I KNOW that many Presbyterian churches (at least locally) pay taxes they aren't required to pay - and I find the sneering I heard in Gryphen's post offensive - and I'm not even part of the group he is sneering at. I hear as much judgmentalness towards "Christians" as is complained about from Christians
- and I still don't know how to identify "Christians." I can identify Fundamental Christian leadership, or Presbyterian leadership, or The Pope and Catholic teachings. But I don't know how to identify a Christian. Heck, the self-identified Christian churches can't agree on what is a Christian. I think an awful lot of people get lumped in by word association.
I don't know why people go to church who don't believe. I just know they do. And some think they do until they are challeneged, and discover they don't. And sometimes it's the opposite. Some go because of tradition. some go for hte social aspects. People belong to churches and religions for all kinds of complicated reasons.
Assuming I believe in god (which I don't thnk I do), and assuming I go to church (which I don't much and never on sunday morning or worship services) what does that have to do with sticking up for a church that pays taxes it's not required by someone sneering at Christians for not paying taxes.
DeleteThe slippery slope is very interesting here. In essence an AA "leader" might claim and exemption as well. And that opens the floodgates for lots of others to claim it. Wonder why the gubmint's taking this position? Afraid someone might start asking too many questions about all the fake preachers claiming exemptions because they are "of the cloth"?
ReplyDeleteThis so frickin' ridiculous! Listen to this guy...
ReplyDeleteGun lobbyist Larry Pratt: Obamacare will force gun owners to have electroshock therapy
Gun Owners of America Executive Director Larry Pratt recently predicted that President Barack Obama’s health care reform law would force gun owners to undergo electroshock therapy.
During an episode of the Talk to Solomon Show on Tuesday, Stan Solomon noted that The Fort Myers News-Press had reported last week that electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) was becoming a popular treatment for bipolar disorder.
“There’s saying, hey, it’s quicker than some drugs and all that type of thing,” Solomon observed. “But so is a bullet.”
“But the fact is, I am telling you, I believe that we’re going to see things get worse before they get better, and you’re going to see people that are going to be — quote — unquote — incorrigible, however they define incorrigible, maybe resisting when people come crashing into your house,” he told Pratt. “Your thoughts? Because we’re becoming very much an able-to-defend-yourself and an unable-to-defend-yourself country.”
“Well, I think part of that is what we’re seeing in Obamacare,” Pratt agreed. “This is going to be what you’re talking about several times over.”
Watch this video from the Talk to Solomon Show, broadcast Aug. 20, 2013.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/22/gun-lobbyist-larry-pratt-obamacare-will-force-gun-owners-to-have-electroshock-therapy/
Florida: That should answer all of your questions. This person is an uneducated right wing nutter simply spouting what ever is the first thing that comes to mind. Obamacare might actually save this poor idiot's life one day. I wish there was a amendment in Obamacare to exempt idiots from having any benefits, but sadly no. It is the folks like this puke that will benefit the most, but they'll never admit it. There simply are some lives not worth saving, but Obama is a better person than I and believes that ALL Americans have the right to healthcare, even if they are brain damaged retarded right wingers. There, I said it.
DeleteGuardian’s Story Changes Again: Now They Admit David Miranda Did Have a Lawyer
ReplyDeleteEditing reality to fit the narrative
Remember the Guardian’s first reports about the UK government detaining Glenn Greenwald’s partner David Miranda, and how Greenwald said Miranda had been “denied a lawyer?”
August 18th: Glenn Greenwald’s Partner Detained at Heathrow Airport for Nine Hours.
“This is a profound attack on press freedoms and the news gathering process,” Greenwald said. “To detain my partner for a full nine hours while denying him a lawyer, and then seize large amounts of his possessions, is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ. The actions of the UK pose a serious threat to journalists everywhere.
Then, the next day, the Guardian’s story changed. In this article they write that Miranda “refused” a lawyer because he didn’t trust the UK: David Miranda: ‘They Said I Would Be Put in Jail if I Didn’t Co-Operate’.
He was offered a lawyer and a cup of water, but he refused both because he did not trust the authorities.
Well, today the story has changed again. And now the Guardian is acknowledging that Miranda actually did have a lawyer — buried near the very end of this article: David Miranda Wins Partial Court Victory Over Data Seized by Police.
He was compelled to provide passwords for the devices. His lawyers said he only had a lawyer for the last hour of his detention and was not allowed a pen to write down the officers questions or a translator even though English was not his first language.
It’s absolutely unreal how these stories just keep changing, after starting out with the most negative slant possible. The most charitable interpretation is that the reporting has been inexcusably sloppy — but this series of revisions strongly suggests they were deliberately misleading their readers.
Greenwald in particular had to know when he made that first statement that his partner actually did have a lawyer. Why did he lie?
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/42429_Guardians_Story_Changes_Again-_Now_They_Admit_David_Miranda_Did_Have_a_Lawyer
Wow, I hadn't seen any of this as I'd not followed this Greenwald Snowden story for a month or so. It does seem to get more strange? I simply have no time to devote to it so carry on those that do and let us know what happens.
DeleteThe GOP doesn’t want Americans to know anything about its candidates
ReplyDeleteGOP will attend no debates on CNN/NBC and Telemundo
The GOP has bet everything on white and is throwing the dice with arrogance even though it can’t afford to lose even a single chip. The only hope that the GOP have of winning is to make some inroads into the minority vote: to put it simply, white people aren’t as racist as the GOP thinks they are, and there is not much more of the white vote to get, and what there is is in states the GOP already wins.
The GOP has learned that no matter how many carefully engineered opportunities they create to ‘rebrand’ they serve up for people like Rand Paul to flub, even if those occasions were successful their barking kennel of Tea Party fanatics— not to mention old Country Club GOP members— will say racist, sexist, homophobic shit and these pesky minorities actually get all het up by that sort of thing and turn out to vote in huge numbers after you call them all a bunch of lazy good-for-nothing cheats.
So the brilliant plan that the GOP has come up with is, apparently, to try to hide their candidates from minorities, while still exposing them to white people. (I can’t really think of a better word than ‘expose’, the process seems hermetic.) They somehow think that keeping their candidates off of NBC/CNN/Telemundo will render them invisible to minority eyes.
Is this a legitimate strategy, or have we moved into the state of the GOP as a con game, a political party that exists to rake in donations, seize control of state legislatures and bust unions and loot pension funds until stopped by the court? I can’t honestly tell.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/42430_The_GOP_doesnt_want_Americans_to_know_anything_about_its_candidates
Neo-Nazi Plans to Build an All-White City of Racists in North Dakota
ReplyDeleteA man living in North Dakota plans to turn his small town into a bastion of white supremacists, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“I didn’t have a clue who the guy was until he showed up. All I know is he bought that house sight unseen, $5,000 cash, and had no idea what it looked like, where it was, other than he knew the directions to get to Leith,” Mayor Ryan Schock told the Hatewatch blog.
Craig Paul Cobb, 61, has been buying up abandoned property in Leith, a town of only 19 people. He has invited other white supremacists to live on his properties and help take over the city.
In a post last year on the Vanguard News Network forum, Cobb said anyone who lives on his property would be required to fly a “racialist banner” — such as a Nazi flag — 24-hours a day. They would also be required to try to “import more responsible radical hard core [white nationalists]” and become a legal resident of the state so they could vote in local elections. He plans to rename the city “Cobbsville.”
“Imagine strolling over to your neighbors to discuss world politics with nearly all like-minded volk. Imagine the international publicity and usefulness to our cause! For starters, we could declare a Mexican illegal invaders and Israeli Mossad/IDF spies no-go zone. If leftist journalists or antis come and try to make trouble, they just might break one of our local ordinances and would have to be arrested by our town constable. See?” he wrote.
Cobb has even built a concrete prison, where he plans to “lock up recalcitrant journalists and lefty commies who violate the codes or peace of the community.”
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/300677_Neo-Nazi_Plans_to_Build_an_All
Louisiana Voters Prefer Hillary Clinton Over Bobby Jindal for President
ReplyDeletePublic Policy Polling found that Louisiana voters would choose Clinton over Jindal by a 47-40 margin if the election were held today. To put that number in perspective, Mitt Romney defeated Barack Obama by a lopsided 58-40 margin in the state. Thus, Jindal would run 25 points worse than Romney’s showing versus Obama in 2012 if he were pitted against Hillary Clinton. Even nearly one in five Louisiana Republicans would prefer Hillary Clinton to their governor. Clinton enjoys a 17 point advantage with Louisiana women and almost breaks even with men trailing just 44-42.
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/08/22/louisiana-voters-prefer-hillary-clinton-governor-jindal-president.html
Christians aren't necessarily "bad" people, they're basically "good" people. Churches are good people with benefits sort of like "corporations are people"
ReplyDeleteThere's this faulty logic about what people don't understand. God is Good, Atheists don't believe in God, therefore Atheists are Evil.
I understand that historically a large number of Christian churches, and the greater culture, suggested, said, etc that atheists are evil, immoral. and that was wrong.
DeleteSeems to be just as wrong to suggest/assume that all churches won't pay taxes, or that all Christians aren't "thinkers," and a lot of other things I hear suggested.