STANLEY: Revenuers vs. religion?

I would like to bring to Erik Stanley's attention the 16th Amendment (ratified Feb. 3, 1913) which gives Congress the "power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived." This includes the power to tax the donations to churches and other nonprofit organizations. So Mr. Stanley is absolutely wrong when he states that the federal government cannot tax churches. While he is correct that IRS cannot prevent a pastor, minister, priest, rabbi or imam from endorsing a candidate for president at his or her house of worship, IRS can, and indeed is obligated to, rescind the tax exemption for any houses of worship that voluntarily choose to violate the law. Simply put, we a nation governed by the rule of law. The point is that a person or group looses certain privileges when they intentionally violate the law. And, by the way, the particular law in question is a very good law. It helps prevent houses of worship from being turned into political machines and conduits for illegal activity.

A pastor has ever right to speak his or her mind. However, they voluntarily give up that right when they accept tax exempt status.

Come again, miked? "they voluntarily give up that right when they accept tax exempt status" Not so fast with that double standard. 527 organizations are tax exempt, but they can express political views. Apparently, religion is such a threat to the Left that individual expressions of it must be silenced. The free exercise of religion, including 1st Amendment expression, does not establish a state religion any more than the free exercise of what one wishes to wear establishes a state fashion code.

MG your logic strains credulity: "religious persecution of followers that do not heed churches' teaching" One either **chooses** to follow the tenants of a religion, or one ***chooses** not to. So if one is a follower, it can't be "persecution". If it is persecution, it can't be towards a follower. "demonic chants for their favored political candidates" ... who does your rage refer to: Jeremiah Wright? Louis Farrakhan? Michael Pfleger?

Any Religious Agenda For Government Is Problematic: Only when one can prove to others that their religion or religious beliefs are from God can one justify any claim of authority to dictate to others anything according to one's religion or religious beliefs. As it stands, no human has proven any religion or set of writings to be from God nor is it likely that any human will be able to effectively do so short of God revealing Himself to all humans at one time in a manner in which it can not be disputed. As long as this is the case, all things concerning God are based on faith and faith does not provide authority or justification to any human to dictate to or control any other human in any way shape or fashion. Believing or having faith in a non-provable thing to be "Truth"* does not make it "Truth"* no matter how strong the belief or faith may be. It is an error to believe that a religious faith provides justification or authority to impose anything on other people. If one feels his or her strength of faith demands as well as justifies actively working to impose their religion's moral belief system onto others they are making an inexcusable mistake.

Any Religious Agenda For Government Is Problematic: Part 2 *Clarification: "Truths" = Truths of morality that are independent of human judgment. Legislating religious based views of morality is problematic at best. Without the human ability to prove one religion over another, whose religion do you make into law? Recognizing this, the founding fathers came up with the concept of the separation of church and state to protect each individual's freedom to decide what faith they wish to empower in their life or conversely the freedom to decide not to empower a faith at all. The government's authority being derived through the permission of the people and not from God means that the people can question the actions of the government. The government becomes accountable to the people. Because the government does not hold an absolute power from God, any citizen can challenge the government on any matter. When a government's power is deemed to be from God, no man can challenge the government for to do so would be to challenge God. If you value your freedom to choose the nature of your faith you need to understand and fully embrace this. Once you do, you should then see the importance of stopping all support for those running for office with the intent to push the government into legislating religious agendas of any type. Working to keep government free from religious influence does not make a person anti religion or anti God. What it does mean is that such a person understands the true value of the freedom to choose and practice their faith in the manner they deem to be correct for them. It also means that they understand that no human can prove to any other human the validity of one religion over any other and because this is the case, no person has the authority, justification or right to attempt to impose their religious belief system of morality onto others. You need only look at Iran 's government to see what it would be like to have your religious beliefs and definition of morality be dictated to you by one group of people through the government. History is full of not so long ago examples of governments dictating to the people what they are to believe and support concerning God and religion. It is for our very own protection against this type of governmental control that we must insist that those who we choose to support for public office must not be seeking office for the purpose of injecting religious based ideology into the laws of this country.

Any Religious Agenda For Government Is Problematic: Part 3 - end Demanding that religion and religious agendas be kept out of all things in the US government is not anti American. On the contrary, it is the epitome being a true American. Being an American means you believe in the preservation of "all freedoms" for "all people" not just for those of one religion or group of religious people. The only way to do this is follow what the founding fathers set forth in the constitution, keep all religions out of all aspects the government. Again, demanding this from the people we put into office does not make a person anti God or anti religion, it makes them a true believer in the heart and soul of what America is all about, the protection of each individual's freedom to choose or decide for themselves.