Like me, you've probably been waiting for those helpful folks on the Christian Right to step up and tell you who to vote for. Well, wait no longer:
The Christian Coalition is distributing 30 million voter guides that use conservative catch-phrases such as "unrestricted abortion on demand" and "affirmative action programs that provide preferential treatment" in detailing the positions of the two presidential candidates.
The guides will be distributed nationally starting Thursday, handed out in churches, at shopping malls and at other public locations. The coalition has been producing the guides since 1992.
Roberta Combs, coalition president, said the guides were an attempt to educate voters and "I don't think the wording is loaded at all."
"You ass-ramming atheist," she reportedly muttered.
The kind of people who don't think the phrase "unrestricted abortion on demand" constitutes loaded wording are also the kind who actually believe that such a thing would ever exist in this country in the first place.
The description of the guides as "nonpartisan" was questioned by some political analysts and coalition critics.
"These guides are clearly partisan, almost always supporting the Republican campaign," said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
"They make the Republican look like a candidate for sainthood and the Democratic candidates look like they belong in the house of horrors wax museum," Lynn said.
In Kerry's case, a French house of horrors, no doubt.
President Bush campaign answered a questionnaire for the guides, while Democrat John Kerry campaign did not.
The question, "When did you finally decide to turn your back on Jesus, Senator Kerry?" was deemed particularly egregious.
The coalition vigorously defends its nonpartisan status, important to its ability to retain its federal tax exemption. The group and the Internal Revenue Service have sparred for years over whether the coalition's activities are too political for a tax-exempt group.
The guides reach an important portion of the electorate. About 25 percent of voters are white evangelicals, polling suggests, and almost four in 10 Republicans describe themselves as evangelicals.
If you ask me (which you didn't), all organized religions are too political to be tax-exempt. And that includes those crafty animists,
25% of voters are white evangelicals, eh? What were the other options?
- Black evangelicals
- White power
- Black rage
- White devil
- Blacula
- White, uptight, and outta sight
- Scream, Blacula, Scream
- Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
Given those, I'd probably have to go with "white devil." That should give me tax exempt status too, right?
The primary reason churches are tax-exempt, and contributions to churches are tax deductible, is because the legislature believed their activities were primarily chartitable in nature. There is some truth to that, as churches frequently collect money for the poor, organize food drives, and provide recovering addicts with a more socially acceptable substance to abuse.
However, it's funny that contributions to PACs or other political organizations (many of whom do good things, a la the Sierra Club) are not tax deductible. And those organizations, to my knowledge, are not tax-exempt, either. So how does the IRS know what percentage of my tithe is going to political activities? Or, for that matter, to hush-hush priest-related child molestation settlements?
The tax-exempt status has also been abused by a number of "churches" in order to protect revenues and property from law suits. This is an area that the IRS is at least cracking down on when it comes to fake religions.
But for all the jibber-jabber about eliminating tax loop holes, or the laughable assertion that Edwards evaded taxes by using a subchapter S-corporation (which is a legit taxable entity that has been around for decades and is merely the precursor to today's more prevalent use of flow-through entities such as limited liability companies and partnerships), if the current administration is really so keen on making the tax code fair to all citizens, they ought to reform it such that religious entities are tax-exempt - and donations are only tax deductible - to the extent that their activities are charitable in nature. Making them set up a taxable subsidiary for all political activity would be my off the cuff suggestion.
As a tax attorney, when the subject came up in the various debates my blood boiled at how often the candidates either: (1) got the law wrong; or (2) intentionally spun the law (in my opinion) impermissably out of bounds. Since the average viewer either didn't care, or doesn't understand, both sides got away with legal misrepresentations that would likely have got me sanctioned if I'd made them in a legal document or before a court.
But hey: what the heck do I know about religion or taxes? (Other than Bush will do nothing to that could even remotely be construed as unfarvorable to his right-wing christian base).
The primary reason churches are tax-exempt, and contributions to churches are tax deductible, is because the legislature believed their activities were primarily chartitable in nature.Hmm. I thought the primary reason was that Bishop Injuriosus did a good job of convincing King Lothair of the Franks about 1435 years ago... http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/570Chrchtax.html
I'll try white, uptight and outta sight WOMAN. Yeah, that's the ticket! Nothing wrong with covering as many bases as possible.
Couldn't agree more. The fact that churches are tax exempt in the first place kind of violates that whole separation thing... and when churches are now so blatantly political, it's even more of a joke.