Church Taxation Could Not Increase Representation.
A common objection to church taxation is it having to afford religion greater representation in politics. Since church and state separation seems to work only one way, it's hard to see how this argument is valid.Religion spends $390 000 000 lobbying government on issues such as abortion, contraception and bioethics, to name just a few. See the Pew Report here.
Religion involves itself in campaigning to overturn policies already passed by government, as with Obamacare and the recent aggressive Catholic opposition to contraception and other female reproductive services being offered to their employees.
Freedom from the pulpit campaign pastors have been endorsing political candidates since 2008, directly breaching the Johnson Amendment of 1954 prohibiting political candidate endorsement. The pastors have recorded their actions and provided the IRS with evidence of them breaching the amendment in the hope an action will be taken and the amendment struck off as unconstitutional. Sadly they are probably right and also why the IRS has failed to act for four years. The Johnson amendment was introduced to silence communist non profits at the time, it was never intended to silence religion. This rather odd out of place exception to religious involvement in government explains why lobbying to the extent religion does is constitutional, but candidate endorsement is not. We're unlikely to see a change in religious lobbying, far more likely is the Johnson amendment being deemed unconstitutional.
Religious bias in US law is prevalent and harms ordinary Americans, and in extreme cases results in the death of children. Religiously biased laws favor the practice of religion over the welfare of children, even if the religious parent's actions result in the child's death. Sean Faircloth writes brilliantly about this in his superb book "The Attack of the Theocrats", a link for which can be found at the foot of this page.
US soldiers proselytize Christian religion abroad in places like Afghanistan handing out bibles and other similar actions designed to expand Christian numbers, despite this being totally unconstitutional, not to mention against the US military's regulations.
How exactly would taxation mean greater representation for religion compared to what it enjoys today? The tax exemption afforded religion in the US is according to a Tampa Uni calculation, costing the USA $71 billion dollars annually. The ending of this exemption would affect religion's ability to lobby government to the extent it does and likely reduce the representation religion enjoys, not increase it. The removal of tax exemption has already been deemed by the supreme court to not affect the free practise of religion and therefore is not unconstitutional.
The worry in the USA must be the increasing way the constitution is read and interpreted with a biblical lens favorable to the Christian religion, Christians fill influential positions and as legislatures, judges and politicians, this trend is unlikely to change in the near future.
What is the answer to the Christian take over of the one document designed to protect the USA from such dominance by one religion?
The soundtrack is Tax Free by Joni Mitchell. The superb book by Sean Faircloth, The Attack of the Theocrats, foreword by Richard Dawkins. click below for details.
