Originally posted by church mouse guy:
OK, Daisy, here is where you missed the boat: "If a church wants special treatment in the form of an exemption, then it should abide by the rules. He who pays the piper, calls the tune." Those are your words, Daisy.
I'm not denying that, Mouse.
Firstly, the government has no right to tax any church as an entity. The power to tax is the power to destroy, and the government cannot go around burning down churches and destroying them.

By that logic, the government has no right to tax anyone but its enemies. The government cannot go around burning down private businesses and destroying them either.
If your point here is that the government has no right to tax anything, ever, that is a different subject for a different thread. If, however, you say the government may tax organizations, then I stand by what I said.
Secondly, as for abiding by the rules, the rules allowed freedom of speech until 1954 when LBJ changed the rules for his private political purposes. Remember he was Senate Majority Leader and very slick. He hid his change in a pile of bills.
That was what? Fifty years ago? It has not been hidden all this time. There have been many other Senate Majority Leaders since then - some of them Republicans - who could try to implement the change you desire. Until then, the law stands.
Thirdly, Uncle Sam does not pay the piper and cannot call the tune. The church exists outside of the state and the state cannot regulate the church except in mundane physical matters such as electrical code, sanitary code, etc. The state has no legal right to govern what is said in the pulpit. Nor should the state subsidize the church.
That is up to the church. If it incorporates, it is subject to corporate law; if it does not, it can do as it chooses.
A tax exemption is not a subsidy.
In effect, it is.
For example, I do not pay corporate income taxes because I am not a corporation. Therefore, I am exempt from corporate income taxes; it is not correct to say that I received a corporate income tax subsidy.
Now that's sophistry! That's like saying you are exempt from rabies vaccinations and dog tag licenses. You are not said to be exempt from a tax which is simply not applicable. If you were incorporated, then you may or may not be exempt from corporate taxes. If you were not, those taxes simply would not apply.
If your church is not incorporated, then it, too, is not subject to corporate taxes and thus cannot lose any "exemption" it doesn't have. However, if it
is incorporated (which, I believe, would allow it to own land and a bank account, have an income and pay salaries, insurance, etc. as an entity), then it may or may not be exempt, according to the state laws of incorporation. So if your church wants to be a corporation, but not pay corporate taxes, then corporations which do pay taxes are subsidizing it. Likewise, if the State is forgoing this revenue that it could collect if not for allowing the exemption, then it, too, is subsidizing your church.
Fourthly, it would be wrong for the Republican majority in Congress and the Republican President to use a Democrat law against Democrat clergy who are the largest violaters of what is a law unworthy of enforcement. It would be better to allow Republican clergy to say what they like as well as to continue to allow Democrat clergy to say what they like. I think that it would be immoral to tax Black churches over a loser like Kerry.
So we agree, almost, on that point: everyone (me) or no one (you).
In conclusion, "Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., will reintroduce a bill that would make it legal for churches to participate in political campaigns without losing tax-exempt status...." God Bless Rep. Walter Jones!
Ok, just remember this will apply to liberal churches, temples, mosques, synagogs and whatever it is that Wiccans and Pagans have.