Houston battle has BIG national implications

[Virge]

Background Info
In order for churches to keep their tax exempt status they cannot mix politics with church services. This has not always been enforced but it has seldom been abused on a large scale.

Laying up here in the hospital I heard this story on Fox and hadn't heard it on other news channels.

[SIZE="6"][URL="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/10/14/city-houston-demands-pastors-turn-over-sermons/"]City of Houston demands
pastors turn over sermons[/URL][/SIZE]
Of course Fox News didn't give the whole story so I started digging after they didn't even say what the city might want those sermons for. I knew Houston has an openly Lesbian mayor but Fox didn't even mention that and I wondered why.

Back in May by a vote of 11 to 6, Houston city council passed an ordinance making discrimination against LGBTs illegal.

How many guesses do you need to figure out who was doing their best to defeat the bill? The Fungi-Mentalist Christians.. aka... The American Taliban. Rather than accept the fact they lost they began a campaign to raise enough signatures for a referendum on the issue... to put it to the citizens of Houston to vote on.

To accomplish this five of Houston's most fungi-mental Fungi-Mentalist Christian ministers seem to have used their churches and their positions as ministers for political purposes. They should lose their tax exempt status because of this. Losing their tax exempt status means is that all at once all their property, assets and income becomes instantaneously taxable, the minute that judgment is made. Failure or inability to pay results in seizure of all property and assets.

This is an issue that could easily reduce the influence of fungi-mentalists on politics and change the lives of gays throughout the USA who have been perpetual scapegoats for these religious fanatics and their lies.

What will happen if they force a referendum in Houston will be a demonstration of the tyranny of the majority that is the big flaw in true democratic government. The fungi-mentals are not even making an attempt to win this issue by presenting arguments in court in which they'd have a chance to make a rational argument before a judge and jury against the Houston ordinance. Why? Because they have no rational arguments against it!

So, if they get their way, they'll be depending on numbers in voting booths to impose the will of a tyranny of the majority. They'll win. There's more of them than there are of "us" and the straight people who support us.

This has to be fought and resisted now. If it succeeds in Houston it will spread to other cities and states. We've been watching one state after another lose battles to keep their unconstitutional attempts to ban gay marriage. We don't need to see a nationwide drive to do it by referendum and let the voters decide. -- unless you like the idea of being dominated by a democratic tyranny of the majority.

[palbert]

Thanks for posting. Tomorrow's battles are really here today

[Bowyn Aerrow]

“Political and social commentary is not a crime,” Holcomb said. “It is protected by the First Amendment.”

He's right.

For the State to demand copies of Sermons, we have the State starting to regulate religion, which is in fact kinda against that whole bill of rights line about

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

Using the Tax Exempt status to make a church knuckle under to the will of the government is also contrary to the Bill of Rights.

Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.


Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

These two set legal obligation of the government to get its nose out of church business.


Yes I know, its unfair, but the same constitution and bill of rights we use to get our liberties and freedoms others do as well.

We may not like what they say in these churches, but their Rights to say what they want are as protected as our rights to say what we want.

No where is withholding Tax Exemptions Status a constitutional leverage tool to force any church to comply to 'secular' beliefs.

If you want to remove their tax exempt status, then you need to address tax law on the subject. The short summery of which is that churches are given tax exemption due to the charity they do in their community. Which (in theory) is supposed to make up for the lack of social institutions that the government does not provide.

Now if you can demonstrate that these churches are not providing charity as per those tax laws, then by all means go after them with guns blazing.

To attack their right to have their preacher say whatever he wants on whatever subject he wants as part of his sermon, is in violation of the Bill of Rights which insures that our pastors can indeed talk freely, even if that is in opposition of the current government.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Oh - BTW this war is over with in America.

We won. We have established a precedent for Gay Marriage. The recent shutting down of higher courts ruling on lower court decisions is going to pass more gay marriage.

Like the whole interracial marriage thing, the blood is on the wall... its just a matter of time.

And all of those churches and all of their pastors can plead, scream, pray away the gay whatever - they lost. We hit the point of no return when Massachusetts decided to give gays the right to marry.

[CuriousPhoenix]

It's a fragile balance that a minister has to keep in his sermons. Ministers are religious leaders and not politicians. He can say whatever he wants to his friends and family. He can join any political organization he wants as an individual. But there is a separation of church and state in America, meaning that the church can't use its influence to thwart the law.

A minister can not go up to his podium and spit forth politically charged sermons. He can speak on the morality of the issues and the consequences on the soul and on the soul of America but that's it. He can't use his position within the church to force his congregation to do what he says. If he incites violence with his sermon then he should be held accountable for the damage he caused. He can't bring in a petition into his church and says that everyone needs to sign it. Ministers, when acting as a minister, can't take sides.

The government cannot go asking to see the sermons of the ministers because they do have the right to say whatever they want. Freedom of speech. The government can go into the church and see what he is preaching from his pulpit every week and from that determine if the minister is breaking the law.

I have always had a problem with ministers, pastors, and clergymen holding government offices. Because I feel that they have the hardest time separating church and state. Example: Huckabee was a minister, I feel that he would work hard against gay marriage because the bible tells him that it is wrong. God tells him its wrong, God tells him that homosexuals are heretics. I feel that then he would persecute the homosexuals to some extent. Laws cannot be based on religious doctrine. We are inherently created equal, so we all have the rights to be who we are.

Now, some will say that stealing and murdering are in the bible and we have laws that say we can't do that so that doesn't make sense. But it does because those are laws not because the bible says so but because we all have an inherent right to live in peace and by murdering and stealing, those who commit the crime are hurting my right to live.

[Rareboy]

I have no doubt that the Churches in the US (including Houston) will beat this back and continue to be tax exempt.

The social contract in the US demands that if the state looks to religious organizations to help pick up the slack on social services support....they will have to accept that not all practitioners will agree with the law and will actively work to overturn it where it is held to be a matter of conscience and moral imperative.

Without even seeing the case come to court, I can tell how Scotus would rule.

[CellarDweller]

I would rather the churches stay tax exempt.

If they start paying taxes, then they'll really feel the have the right to impose their views on everyone.

[Virge]

[SIZE="7"][COLOR="Red"]Bowyn you are completely wrong and wasted a bunch of words.
[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[SIZE="5"]Most of the time when I start a thread on something I fact check myself to be sure I'm right it. This time I didn't need to because I've been reading up on tax exempt status for churches and knew about it going back all the way to Bill Clinton's white House taking down some churches for exactly what the churches in Houston have done.

All you had to do was google "church loses tax exempt status" to find a few pages of info about all the times governments have pressed charges against churches for using the pulpit as a political instrument. It IS NOT a violation of the 1st amendment. but they lie and say it is --- the same way they lie about so many other things.[/SIZE]

[Virge]

I would rather the churches stay tax exempt.

If they start paying taxes, then they'll really feel the have the right to impose their views on everyone.

Huh? It's impossible for them to feel more like they have a right to impose their views than they do already.

[LJay]

Haven't we been dealing with this since Falwell and before?

There will always be some preacher willing to blow off on some issue or other.

As for subpoenas for sermons and accounts of meetings, I don't think that the fundies who want to get around it would have any problems. The practice has LARGE potential for raging reaction from both the right and the left.

The religious right is slowly digging itself in to a dark corner. Let it.