this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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Should have been a complete rejection, but I'll take it

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[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 11 points 9 hours ago (7 children)

Should have been a complete rejection, but I'll take it

I'm surprised Roberts didn't go the other way. When they heard the case, I figured it was because they wanted to rule in favor of the religious schools.

[–] timewarp@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (2 children)

Religion & Christianity are in major decline with modern technology. At some point we have to confront why Democrats thought having thousands of corporations across America operate as tax exempt non profits while spreading Trump's messaging was a good idea. Religion, but especially Christianity, is always the elephant in the room. Religious leaders love the idea of the past when they had more power/control/$. Are we going backwards or forwards?

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 59 minutes ago

You can't advocate for the separation of church and state and still decide churches are Republican tools. upholding the law as written now means they must respect that tax scam churches have; and work towards re-examining it methodically.

Unilaterally deciding to change the tax code because it would fit their political agenda is more a Republican thing.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world -1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Eh, I'm a firm believer that society has no business legislating and regulating thoughts. Regulating and taxing churches, while satisfying, would be a huge step in the wrong direction.

[–] timewarp@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

So I'm tax exempt now since I have thoughts? Those poor tax payers though must not have any thoughts, so they should be taxed as a result.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I don't understand your argument.

[–] timewarp@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

My point was that taxing churches is not legislating and regulating thoughts. People can still choose to believe in something while it pays taxes from the money it collects. Churches can tithe 10% of that money to the government to serve the public. Tell me that these aren't corporations with a straight face:

https://religiondispatches.org/inevitable-megachurch-abuse-of-ppp-funds-is-coming-to-light-private-jet-included/

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Churches are the mechanism by which people organize and share beliefs. Countries that do not allow freedom of religion use taxes and regulations to shut down religious organizations that either don't follow the state sanctioned religion or compete with the state sanctioned religion. It is indeed a form of thought control.

Political leaders of faith will seek out ways to favor their own churches and punish the ones they don't like. The Supreme Court has already created two classes of religions by giving preferential status to their own faiths while denying the rights of faiths they don't believe should exist. That's happening already, and we have a constitution that specifically prohibits it.

I agree with you that certain church leaders abuse their status and dramatically cross the line when it comes to political activity. They aren't really churches, and there really is plenty of proof of that. I think the people running those organizations belong in prison for fraud, but I don't get to have everything I want. It should be very hard to take away tax exempt status, though, because you know politicians would abuse that worse than church leaders abuse the system now.

If you and me were in charge, we could probably sit down with a list and make some really reasonable decisions about which churches should be taxed. But neither of us has that power, so I'm glad nobody else has it, and I'll even bet that a lot of other people are glad we don't have that power.

Yes there is fraud and abuse and corruption of tax-exempt churches. This is the better alternative.

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