Never on Sunday
It’s Sunday, which means that millions of Americans across the country are going to church, at church, or coming from church. Church is big here, even if the region of the country where I live seems to be crowded with athiests or people of indifferent religious faith who never actually attend church.
One of the interesting things about churches in this country is that they are exempt from taxation. Automatically, too, they don’t even need to apply to the IRS. If you’re a church, you don’t pay taxes. The exception to this rule is that if you become involved in political activities, you lose that tax-exempt status. That seems pretty reasonable to me, because churches are a lot like nonprofit organizations, providing a valuable service to their communities.
But I think it’s time for the tax-exempt status of every single church in the United States to be reviewed. It is clear that churches have become heavily involved in politics, from openly preaching about politics in the pulpit to encouraging members of the church to donate to political causes to…refusing communion on the basis of your vote. I think that as soon as a church is used for a political purpose, it’s time to lift that tax-exempt status.
And I’m surprised that the IRS hasn’t done it already. The IRS clearly has no problem with taking money from citizens, and it will aggressively pursue you for every last dime you owe, so why isn’t it tackling the churches? Is the IRS afraid? Because it shouldn’t be. The fact is that churches are abusing their power, blurring the lines between church and state, and manipulating American politics.
And hey, if you want to express yourself politically, that is totally fine. I understand that many religions have firm stances on issues which come up in politics, and they want to make those stances clear to their congregations. But in so doing, they cross a line, and that means that they get to start paying taxes.
Given the current economic, ah, troubles, you’d think the IRS would be jumping at a chance to get its hands on the bloated coffers of American churches. Come on, IRS. Bring it.
Tags: commentary, politics
i think asking for stricter enforcement of the Non-Profits Can’t Partake in Politics clause could have consequences you might not like. my personal preference would be for us to stop pretending that non-profits are outside of politics, and let them engage above board without having to lie about it.
planned parenthood, for example, is a non-profit, and is tax exempt. the pro-life right has, for many years, been pushing to have their status removed, for exactly the same reason you’re saying here. pretending like planned parenthood isn’t very actively involved in politics is beyond a bit tricky, although the organization itself tries to paint it that way to retain their status. that’s a silly game they have to play, and i think is indicative of a broken system, rather than a call for stricter enforcement.
the fact is, any non-profit - and that includes churches - that actually cares about what it exists for is going to be actively involved in politics, because policy is the best way to get things done in this country. i want planned parenthood to be active in political education, i want the naacp to be active in political education, and yes, i want churches to be active in political education too. i don’t want The Church to dictate my national policy, but for pastors, rabbis, imams, or their congregations to pretend like they can wear one face in their personal and political lives, and one face in their private lives, is a bit silly anyway.
i’m sad about the role the churches played in prop. 8, but i also think in a nation that is religious by a vast majority, people shouldn’t have to pretend to check their faith at the door when they think about politics.
i should add that strictly speaking, the way planned parenthood - as well as groups like moveon - gets around the rule is by having two organizations. one is named something like planned parenthood, and is tax exempt and never says anything having to do with politics (in theory). the other is named something like the planned parenthood action committee, and spends money on overtly political campaigns that have the name PLANNED PARENTHOOD Action Committee blazoned across them, making it very clear to everyone except 99.9% of their intended audience that the posters are not in fact from planned parenthood.
Right, I would be ok with Mormon/Catholic/Muslim PACs, I think that’s fine. (And I indeed agree that nonprofits and religious groups can and should be involved in the political system.) But I do think that the tax-exempt status of the Church has less to do with the Church as a nonprofit, and more to do with the Church as a religious entity, and I am not ok with that. I do not think that the Church should be getting special benefits. And I think that PACs are taxed, and that is good, and that if religious groups are going to be pumping millions of dollars into another state to pass hate legislation, that they should damn fucking well start getting taxed.
it’s a hard line for me.
yes, if i could single out the Mormon Church right now, and other wealthy super-Church organizations like the mega-churches around the world, or the Catholic Church as an entity, I would get behind it.
but i like that my local parish can take donations tax-free and use it to run their soup kitchens. whether or not they talk about politics from the pulpit, that’s something i want to keep seeing.
so i am not sure how i want to deal with the problem of large religions influencing politics on a grand scale (and i think the cjclds made a mistake in prop 8 that will unfortunately hurt all churches by drawing attention to how much money they can bring to bear to influence poltiics), because i don’t want to throw the baby (jesus?) out with the bathwater.
some of my favorite social activist causes, especially in the areas of assisting the homeless, are affiliated with churches. and they are necessarily political, because they want to affect policies that cause homelessness. and they are already economically burdened, so i don’t want to strip them of the one thing that helps them out a bit. sigh.
I definitely sympathize with your point of view. There are a lot of great faith-based charity works which I am all about, and I can see how a lot of those charities might cross the line into political activity (e.g. lobbying for better social policies). And it’s important to distinguish between church headquarters/the seat of the church and local parishes. Why should a Catholic parish suffer because the Mother Church supports bigotry and hatred? But I do think that it is very dangerous to create a situation where a church can use millions and millions of dollars to support bigotry. And a cap on political spending isn’t necessarily the solution, because that would probably impact social programs.
I really strongly feel that the LDS should not be allowed to get away with this, and the best way to do that is to hit them in a pocketbook, which is where it will hurt. I’m not letting the Catholic Church off the hook here either. It is simply unreasonable that other political action groups get taxed for funding political advertisements/donating to political campaigns, and the Church does not. (I’m differentiating here between “politics” as in electoral politics and “politics” as in social programs/getting involved with the govt.)
i think i’ve figured out the distinction i would need to exist to feel comfortable supporting revoking tax-exempt status, which has to do with pulpit support of an issue and material support of an issue.
basically, if i have holy place x and they have tax exempt status, and the pastor or priest or imam or rabbi takes a political stance - and in this sense i am saying not only standing up for political issues, but also taking specific stances on ballot measures and the like - i don’t think the church should lose that status. the way the law is now, technically they should, and while i understand the rationale behind that, i don’t like it. i don’t like that holy people have to have a face-of-the-church stance and a personal stance; it just seems silly.
but, if what’s happening is that holy place x is actually giving material support to a political cause - donating to a candidate or funding political action campaigns to push a candidate or a ballot measure, for example - i think the status could safely be revoked.
that would clear up most of my problems. lds couldn’t get away with what they’re getting away with, but my social justice priest could still say things that were overtly political - by the same token a pastor’s church could retain their tax-exempt status even after saying people who support obama shouldn’t take communion, but such is the price of the free speech i want.
But the LDS could get away with what they just did under your plan, because the LDS didn’t donate the funds. Instead, the LDS urged individual Mormons to donate.