Prop 8

[Lambert14 0]

Originally posted by: Patricius Maximus I've just looked at this thread and just can't resist adding in my opinions (a.k.a. two cents, which corrected for inflation would be about 50 cents by now).

The commonality of all the things discussed here -- gay marriage, sodomy, polygamy -- is that they are all social stigmas which have been codified into the law.

Polygamy, for some strange reason, has been stigmatized by the conservative settlers and codified into their laws, and their laws have never been repealed, since polygamy is still stigmatized.

For evidence, look at the headline on CNN during the crisis at the YFZ Ranch -- "Polygamy's Children". The children's parents were no doubt polygamous, but they are not "products" of polygamy, a word that has a negative connontation for many.

Sodomy was/is another codified stigma. Some people had their sexual relations different than the majority, so the majority moved swiftly to ban and discriminate against such people, thus codifing their stigma.

Gay marriage is a third one, which I will discuss in detail.

Imagine there are two people which are in a relationship with each other -- they love each other, there are no major problems. Eventually they wish to get married. Upon that, the state government takes a look at them. They happen to be of the same gender. The state government says, "Sorry, you're homosexual. You cannot marry in this state." While the homosexual couple looks on at the heterosexuals getting married every day.

This couple cannot get married because of the intolerance of conservative Christians which seek to "protect" the "institutions" most valuable to them -- in this case, "protecting marriage". There is no reasoning that can justify this.

What does marriage need protecting from? Is marriage in danger from the 1 or 2 percent of homosexuals that want to get married? They're not dangerous, and they harbor no more ill will than any other group of humans.

All they want is to marry and live with the person they love. All that is standing in their way is a bunch of religious fanatics waving a 2000-year-old book which is part fiction, part history, and that they claim is "the word of God".

It seems to me to be the height of hypocrisy for a population to preach tolerance and a liberal democracy, yet not apply it to down-to-earth ethical choices. It is as if these people are saying, "We're tolerant to eveyone. Except those who we don't like." It also goes against the principles in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, which they also claim to promote.

That statement I have mentioned also has a ring of selfishness to it, another thing that those people are claiming to try to reduce in our society.

This "line of reasoning" from their sacred book cannot be justified by reason, and then the whole argument just falls apart.

On the contrary, the opposing argument actually applies the principles of rights, tolerance, and equality to every person.

My argument is this: Grant them the same rights as everyone else and let them marry the ones they love.

- Patricius Maximusquote>

you rock sir

[Patricius Maximus 236]

Ban divorce? What if your spouse ruined your house, killed someone you loved, or beat your children or you?quote>

Prop 8 denies homosexuals the right to marry the ones they love. It doesn't ban divorce. And as far as I know there are no referenda out to ban divorce.

[threeswept 12]

Originally posted by: Patricius Maximus

Ban divorce? What if your spouse ruined your house, killed someone you loved, or beat your children or you?quote>

Prop 8 denies homosexuals the right to marry the ones they love. It doesn't ban divorce. And as far as I know there is no referenda out to ban divorce.quote>

The ban divorce was in response to my reply. It has nothing to do with Prop 8.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: Patricius Maximus  And as far as I know there is no referenda out to ban divorce.quote>

Subject-verb agreement, buddy. Either "there is no referendum" or "there are no referenda".

What's particularly amusing is that you of all people would screw up Latin pluralization, when you have a username in Latin.

Kids, we call that irony.

[Meg 368]

Random thoughts of the day:

My 12th grade homeroom teacher wanted me to take Latin.   Looking back, I wish I had.

My 10th grade English teacher wanted me to take creative writing.  Looking back, I wish I had.

---

 

We now return you to our regular discussion.

 

 

[CapitolAnarchy 5]

If America's liberals really cared about making things "fair"; they would be working to abolish ALL state-sanctioned marriage. Granting privileges/benefits only to people who choose to be in monogamous, committed relationships whether they be straight or gay is really unfair and unjustifiable any way you look at it.

--An angry queer transperson, with multiple partners

[Patricius Maximus 236]

The ban divorce was in response to my reply. It has nothing to do with Prop 8.quote>

Ah, I see now.

Subject-verb agreement, buddy. Either "there is no referendum" or "there are no referenda".

What's particularly amusing is that you of all people would screw up Latin pluralization, when you have a username in Latin. quote>

A typo, Duke. It sometimes happens. I will correct it. I also find it somewhat ironic myself, but I really messed up the English subject/verb agreement, instead of the Latin.

My 12th grade homeroom teacher wanted me to take Latin.   Looking back, I wish I had.

My 10th grade English teacher wanted me to take creative writing.  Looking back, I wish I had.quote>

Are you suggesting I know nothing about grammar and pluralization because of a typo? If that's a joke, I don't get it.

If America's liberals really cared about making things "fair"; they would be working to abolish ALL state-sanctioned marriage. Granting privileges/benefits only to people who choose to be in monogamous, committed relationships whether they be straight or gay is really unfair and unjustifiable any way you look at it.quote>

Well, I do agree that it is discriminatory to grant only monogamous heterosexual couples the right to marry, and the 1000+ rights attached to it. Which happens to fit in about my previous argument about legalizing both polygamous and homosexual marriage.

Of course, it is not just the liberals that are ignoring the other issues -- conservatives, fascists, centrists, liberals, neoliberals, and democratic socialists do also.

Criticizing the liberals for this is like accusing Jefferson of not trying to abolish slavery, or ignoring child labor laws that restrict the rights of the youth population -- it takes time for progressive people to address other, previously ignored issues. However, it is a valid point.

[Duke87 1,070]

Polygamy is a different animal since there are logistical problems with granting some of the rights granted to married couples to a group larger than two people. For instance, the whole power of attorney thing. Someone gets incapacitated and is incapable of speaking for themselves, so someone needs to speak for them to make medical decisions. If they're married, that responsibility automatically falls on their spouse - which works great when their spouse is only one person. But if they're married to two people, this can become a problem since they cannot both have power of attorney. What if those two people disagree? Spouse number one says pull the feeding tube, spouse number two says keep it in. Who do you listen to?

From a strictly moral and ethical standpoint, there is really no reason to not allow polygamy other than tradition and religious beliefs.

But from a practical standpoint, there are problems with it. Legally speaking, it would be a nightmare.

Hence why I think it best to allow any two people to be civilly joined if they so choose, but to draw the line and limit it to two people. It's not really all that unfair.

Okay, granted, you are going to get some bisexuals who will want one partner of each gender simultaneously for various reasons. And while there's nothing morally wrong with that, the rub is that it really wouldn't work very well from a legal standpoint. Not unless we took those rights granted to married couples which can only really be granted to a couple and not a three(or more)some away, which would be decidedly more oppressive than not permitting polygamy, albeit arguably more "fair". The problem is it makes things fair by taking away rights from far more people than it gives them to. Taking away rights is never a good thing.

The other problem is that it opens itself up to abuse. When you marry someone, you get a tax exemption since now you're a house of two instead of a house of one, and get to file one set of taxes instead of two (so, as an aside, the government sort of has an economic interest to be against gay marriage since allowing it means more tax exemptions which means they collect less income tax revenue...). Works fine and is fair for married couples.

But now if we allow polygamy and all of a sudden rather than being limited to one the sky's the limit on how many legal partners you can have -  then you'd start seeing shenanigans like hedge fund babies in suburbia "marrying" the Mexicans that mow their lawn to get half a dozen tax exemptions and cheat the government out of some money. Oh, and it would be perfectly legal.

Yeah, that's a can of worms we really want to open up.

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: Patricius Maximus

My 12th grade homeroom teacher wanted me to take Latin.   Looking back, I wish I had.

My 10th grade English teacher wanted me to take creative writing.  Looking back, I wish I had.quote>

Are you suggesting I know nothing about grammar and pluralization because of a typo? If that's a joke, I don't get it.  quote>

No, it wasn't about you and it wasn't a joke.  When you guys were talking about Latin grammar, it reminded me of my teachers' advice and how I wish I had taken it.

Just another minor, off topic digression.

 

Moving on to the polygamy issue . . .

I read an article about how some polygamists were hoping that the whole gay marriage issue would give them an opening to bring up plural marriage.  They figured, if the definition of marriage was being changed anyway, here's their chance.

Thing is, those were "consenting adults only" polygamists.   When the "non consenting, non adult" polygamists in Texas hit the news, they figured it ruined their chances.

 

Actually, the nuclear family (mama bear, papa bear, baby bears) is a relatively new construct.  Back in the old days, the extended family was considered to be the norm.   It's only been for the last 150 years or so that the nuclear family has been considered to be the ideal construct.

Some people believe, given the divorce rate, that it's an experiment that is failing.  There aren't enough adults to handle the various forms of stress that life brings.

[Duke87 1,070]

It's true that "back in the old country" you often had more than two generations living in the same house. Kids lived not only with their parents but also with their grandparents. And their aunts, uncles, and cousins lived right next door, since they were merely living on a different part of the land that their parents lived on. And they were subsistence farmers. They grew crops and raised livestock, made as much as they could themselves and traded or whatever they could not.

Then the industrial revolution came along and all of a sudden rather than working your ancestral land you were going off to a factory to work and get paid to buy things you needed rather than making them yourself - which removed the need or desire for families to stay within the same small town and replaced it with the need for veryone to move wherever was convenient for them to be commuting to work from.

And then all of a sudden rather than having all your family and friends exist within a square mile, they spread out much more, over the region, over the whole country, even into other countries. I still have relatives which live in the small town in Italy my father's family came from, but I also have relatives in other parts of Italy, and over here in the US. When my grandmother was born, pretty much the entire family was still in that one small town, as were all the paesans.

Now, granted, I still have stable relationships with my extended family - they're coming over for Christmas, I'll see them again on New Years, etc. - but they live in different towns and I certainly don't see them on a daily basis.

Is this breakup of the extended family to blame for the divorce problem? I really doubt it.

No, the divorce problem is an unfortunate consequence of the librealization of society and the abandonment of traditional values. Divorce didn't sed to be an issue because society was not accepting of it. It wasn't allowed. Now that it's become acceptable, marriage and thus the family have deteriorated since people marry frivolously. "'Til death do us part" is an empty promise these days. People marry each other and then grow to hate each other and the marriage breaks up. That didn't used to happen. The odd part is that marriages used to be much more arranged and about social convenience than about love. And yet, people got along and managed. For one thing because divorce wasn't an option, so they were forced to work through and civilly settle and disputes rather than getting nasty, fighting, and breaking up. For another because, well, people used to be nicer in general. Being rude, obnoxious, and selfish has also become much more accepted by society, and thus there are more rude, obnoxious, and selfish people who will cause relationships to break up.

Of course, one cannot look at marriage without looking at sex - and that does indeed enter into the picture here, too. Used to be that you had to be married to have sex. That certainly made marriage special and provided a reason to get maried and stay married. Now that premarital sex is quite normal, that's a huge way in which marriage is less special than it used to be. And indeed, the proliferation of promiscuity and random hookups has made romance itself. married or otherwise, not as special as it used to be.

The other problem then is that it's a vicious cycle. If your parents get divorced, that sets an example for you. Children whose parents are in stable, loving relationships are far more likely to grow up and have stable, loving relationships of their own than children whose parents are divorced or otherwise seperated.

And that's just common sense. Doesn't take a scientific study to figure that out, although scientific studies have indeed confirmed it.

And, naturaly, considering how the commonfolk of our society these days idolize celebrities and superstars, the fact that you constantly have singers and actors getting married and subsequently divorced left and right diesn't exactly set a good example, either. Hollywood glorifies divorce, whether they intend to or not, because of that.

....still, banning divorce wouldn't really help since all it would do is serve to force people who hate each other to stay married and prevent them from remarrying someone else. And it certainly wouldn't stop people from ceasing to live together and then going off and starting other relationships.

Besides which, it would be  perfect example of attacking a symptom rather than the underlying problem, which is never a good idea.

The underlying problem, of course, being that people don't look upon marriage the same way they used to. Trouble is, no legislation can change that. Culture is subject mostly to the whims of public perception and opinion and is pretty much out of any government's control. It's an untamable beast.

As such, the only logical conclusion we can really arrive at here is that while divorce is indeed a problem, we really can't do jack about it and are just stuck dealing with it.

Some would say "we need to go back to our more traditional roots".

Well, that's easy to say but who the hell is going to listen to you when you say it? Only the people who already agree with you. I don't think there's a harder task in existence than to make someone change their mind. Oh, and for that idea to work you need to make a couple hundred million people change their minds. Good luck with that.

Besides which, in all honsety, there are plenty of aspects of "our more traditional roots" which I, for one, am more than happy to see abandoned as well as the aspects which I'm sad to see go. There are tradeoffs and compromises involved in everything. The liberalization of society has brought both good and bad things. One can't so quickly condemn it based one what is but one issue.

[Patricius Maximus 236]

Polygamy is a different animal since there are logistical problems with granting some of the rights granted to married couples to a group larger than two people. For instance, the whole power of attorney thing. Someone gets incapacitated and is incapable of speaking for themselves, so someone needs to speak for them to make medical decisions. If they're married, that responsibility automatically falls on their spouse - which works great when their spouse is only one person. But if they're married to two people, this can become a problem since they cannot both have power of attorney. What if those two people disagree? Spouse number one says pull the feeding tube, spouse number two says keep it in. Who do you listen to?quote>

That problem could be rectified if the person incapacitated previously named the spouse they would have to listen to.

From a strictly moral and ethical standpoint, there is really no reason to not allow polygamy other than tradition and religious beliefs.
But from a practical standpoint, there are problems with it. Legally speaking, it would be a nightmare.

Hence why I think it best to allow any two people to be civilly joined if they so choose, but to draw the line and limit it to two people. It's not really all that unfair.

Okay, granted, you are going to get some bisexuals who will want one partner of each gender simultaneously for various reasons. And while there's nothing morally wrong with that, the rub is that it really wouldn't work very well from a legal standpoint. Not unless we took those rights granted to married couples which can only really be granted to a couple and not a three(or more)some away, which would be decidedly more oppressive than not permitting polygamy, albeit arguably more "fair". The problem is it makes things fair by taking away rights from far more people than it gives them to. Taking away rights is never a good thing.quote>

If we were to keep the same marriage rights for couples, polygamous marriages would have to be handled differently.

The other problem is that it opens itself up to abuse. When you marry someone, you get a tax exemption since now you're a house of two instead of a house of one, and get to file one set of taxes instead of two (so, as an aside, the government sort of has an economic interest to be against gay marriage since allowing it means more tax exemptions which means they collect less income tax revenue...). Works fine and is fair for married couples.
But now if we allow polygamy and all of a sudden rather than being limited to one the sky's the limit on how many legal partners you can have -  then you'd start seeing shenanigans like hedge fund babies in suburbia "marrying" the Mexicans that mow their lawn to get half a dozen tax exemptions and cheat the government out of some money. Oh, and it would be perfectly legal.
Yeah, that's a can of worms we really want to open up.quote>

Solutions: Limiting tax exemption to two-person marriages, limiting the exemption for only one spouse of a polygamous marriage, or abolishing the tax exemption.

Also, I would like to point out that it is possible to abuse the current system -- 4 people working in a hedge fund that have 4 Mexicans working on their lawn can marry each other in groups of two each. Nothing would change except the scale of possibility.

In short, plural marriage can be done, but it would require some creative thinking about how to manage it.

[CapitolAnarchy 5]

Originally posted by: Patricius Maximus 

If America's liberals really cared about making things "fair"; they would be working to abolish ALL state-sanctioned marriage. Granting privileges/benefits only to people who choose to be in monogamous, committed relationships whether they be straight or gay is really unfair and unjustifiable any way you look at it.quote>

Well, I do agree that it is discriminatory to grant only monogamous heterosexual couples the right to marry, and the 1000+ rights attached to it. Which happens to fit in about my previous argument about legalizing both polygamous and homosexual marriage.

Of course, it is not just the liberals that are ignoring the other issues -- conservatives, fascists, centrists, liberals, neoliberals, and democratic socialists do also.

Criticizing the liberals for this is like accusing Jefferson of not trying to abolish slavery, or ignoring child labor laws that restrict the rights of the youth population -- it takes time for progressive people to address other, previously ignored issues. However, it is a valid point.quote>

[Patricius Maximus 236]

Oh I just take special issue with liberals, because unlike the other aforementioned groups, they make it a point to pretend they care.quote>

For reference, I assume that the "liberals" you refer to are the American pseudoliberals commonly referred to as such, which have more in common with democratic socialism than liberalism. Liberalism is a fundamentally individualist ideology - pseudoliberals are fundamentally collectivist.

They think that Barrack Obama is the solution to racism; and vote for an increase of police in Black communities and other communities of color and the expansion of the prison system.quote>

It is mostly the Obamamaniacs that think he is the total solution to racism. I think his presence will help the current racial bias. Since November 4, there has been a surge in African Americans in commericals.

The expansion of the prison system is due mainly to the "War on Drugs", which most ideologies support.

As for the child labor laws statement; it really depends on which child labor laws you're referring to.quote>

I am referring to the child labor laws that almost eliminate their right to work, and force them into schools.

This of course continued to be the trend for women, as women became more socially/politically empowered (several major labor victories, as well as the right to vote) but children never got the same recognition and eventually as the radicalized European/American schooling model that were beginning to dominate the late 1800s/early 1900s began to phase out, laws were enacted to essentially force children into schooling for their "protection". Of course this had much more to do with maintaining the traditional parent/child power dynamics, and creating more educated (read: productive, profitable) population than actually protecting children from exploitations.quote>

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[Lambert14 0]

interesting news story I found. Apparently the Mormon church bit off more then it can chew and possibly broke the law...

http://www.towleroad.com/2009/01/video-mormon-fi.html

[belfastuniguy 18]

Clearly the LDS Church has broken the IRS regulations regarding political involvement. They also seem to have purposely misrepresented the level of funding they provided to the YES campaign.

Personally I'd like every church and religion have their tax exempt status removed and proper and clear separation between Church and State, something that has become rather cloudy in the United States.

[Barbarossa 51]

.

  Edited September 1, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[hym 358]

Originally posted by: belfastuniguy

Personally I'd like every church and religion have their tax exempt status removed...quote>

What is this supposed to accomplish other than to decrease the amount of charity work that many churches engage in, put more Americans in financial hardship, and further drive the pronounced hatred you've spoken against so many times before?

[belfastuniguy 18]

What is this supposed to accomplish other than to decrease the amount of charity work that many churches engage in, put more Americans in financial hardship, and further drive the pronounced hatred you've spoken against so many times before?quote>

Yeah but the problem is that churches, mainly in America make a vast amount of money through certain activities and to be honest I see no reason why they should be treated any differently. I wouldn't have a problem with a fund being created by the churches where they can channel money for their charitable organs provided they open their books showing that the money is exculsively used as such.

Thing is a good few large 'corporation' churches do engage in rather less than 'holy' practices, LDS a good example. I don't see how removing their tax status somehow leads to an increase in hatred...please explain.

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: hym

What is this supposed to accomplish other than to decrease the amount of charity work that many churches engage in, put more Americans in financial hardship, and further drive the pronounced hatred you've spoken against so many times before?quote>

 

First, let's look at a basic equation:

(Taxes that are levied) - (Loopholes to get out of those taxes) = (Tax money available for national defense, education, infrastructure improvement, etc)

Giving churches tax exempt status is a huge loophole.  Every dollar that they do not pay is another dollar that creates either a tax hike or a reduction in services for the rest of us.   By eliminating this loophole, we could:

- Increase the amount of money that states and local communities can use for education by recapturing lost revenue (such as the property taxes the churches don't pay)

- Increase the amount of money that the federal government can use to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure.  (The highway system is federal.   Bridge in Minneapolis, anyone?)

- Reduce the number of fraudulent organizations pretending to be churches.  Many a con man has received tax benefits by "forming a church".    Why should the rest of us pay for this?

-  Ensure that tax money is not used for political action groups.   and let's face it:  many churches have become political action groups.   

The churches are gradually (and sometimes not so gradually) encroaching into government, where they have no business being.   I'm all for pulling the plug on the subsidy they have been getting.

[_Atticus 10]

This issue has nothing to be with separation of church and state. Churches are non-profit organizations, and as such, they don't pay taxes. Simple as that.

-Pingangster

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: pingangster

This issue has nothing to be with separation of church and state. Churches are non-profit organizations, and as such, they don't pay taxes. Simple as that.

-Pingangsterquote>

 

"non-profit organizations" that are run by millionaires.  guys who were not millionaires before the formed the so-called non-profit organization.

 

[belfastuniguy 18]

This issue has nothing to be with separation of church and state. Churches are non-profit organizations, and as such, they don't pay taxes. Simple as that. quote>

Really??

What about the American Megachurches? Are you seriously suggesting all those churches are there 'purely' for non-profit means and as Ski mentioned with millionaire preachers and founders....oh please...such delusion.

[_Atticus 10]

I don't know much about those, but they are certainly the exception. Are you going to tell me that my parish church is for profit? I assure you, it's not. And no, I'm not delusional.

-Pingangster

[Meg 368]

Be nice, bug.

 

Personally, I believe that a large religious organization isn't any more trustworthy than large government.   and that's not saying much.

[_Atticus 10]

What do you mean by large religious organizations, and what do you mean by trustworthy?

-Pingangster

[hym 358]

Originally posted by: belfastuniguy

What is this supposed to accomplish other than to decrease the amount of charity work that many churches engage in, put more Americans in financial hardship, and further drive the pronounced hatred you've spoken against so many times before?quote>

Yeah but the problem is that churches, mainly in America make a vast amount of money through certain activities and to be honest I see no reason why they should be treated any differently.quote>

Those churches represent a minority of the churches in the United States.  Many churches are so poor that they have to ask affiliated churches for money to help pay the person in the pulpit every week.

I wouldn't have a problem with a fund being created by the churches where they can channel money for their charitable organs provided they open their books showing that the money is exculsively used as such. quote>

Last I checked, one of the requirements of having tax-exempt status was that you had to be able to prove your compliance with tax-exempt regulations should the IRS come knocking for an audit.  If you can't prove compliance with the codes concerning tax exempt status, you're eligible to have your tax exempt status revoked.

Thing is a good few large 'corporation' churches do engage in rather less than 'holy' practices, LDS a good example. I don't see how removing their tax status somehow leads to an increase in hatred...please explain.quote>

In your time on the internet, I'm going to guess that you might have run into a person or two who was talking about how "religion was being assaulted in the United States."  Now, if you take away churches' tax exempt status and treat them as if they are profit-driven corporations, you'll give the idiots all the fuel they'll ever need to wail on about how the government is evil, they (being whatever religion, church, or whatever) are being persecuted, or some other such thing.  And I promise you, Pat Robertson or some other visible person will get his voice heard; he may not change the end outcome, but you will hear the man.  And others will agree with him (or her as the case may be).  And they will agree with said person, and it will generate more animousity and division, as those people will flock to the cause of that individual who is preaching whatever vitriol against the government.

Originally posted by: SkiGeek

Originally posted by: hym

What is this supposed to accomplish other than to decrease the amount of charity work that many churches engage in, put more Americans in financial hardship, and further drive the pronounced hatred you've spoken against so many times before?quote>

Giving churches tax exempt status is a huge loophole.  Every dollar that they do not pay is another dollar that creates either a tax hike or a reduction in services for the rest of us.   By eliminating this loophole, we could:quote>

Exactly how much money do you think a lot of these churches make?  As I said earlier, many of them are so poor they run net deficits and have to ask affiliated churches for money to keep the lights on and the building heated in the winter.

- Increase the amount of money that states and local communities can use for education by recapturing lost revenue (such as the property taxes the churches don't pay)quote>

Do you really trust the government to use that money responsibly?  Or will it just get wasted lining a politician's pocket or in government waste?

- Increase the amount of money that the federal government can use to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure.  (The highway system is federal.   Bridge in Minneapolis, anyone?)quote>

Considering that we're looking at potentially trillions of dollars in repair work, taxing a bunch of nearly broke churches is supposed to make a dent in this?

- Reduce the number of fraudulent organizations pretending to be churches.  Many a con man has received tax benefits by "forming a church".    Why should the rest of us pay for this?quote>

Maybe a better approach would be to punish the guilty instead of using a blanket approach that hurts everyone?

Originally posted by: SkiGeek

Originally posted by: pingangster

This issue has nothing to be with separation of church and state. Churches are non-profit organizations, and as such, they don't pay taxes. Simple as that.

-Pingangsterquote>

 

"non-profit organizations" that are run by millionaires.  guys who were not millionaires before the formed the so-called non-profit organization. quote>

As was said earlier, some churches, particularly the megachurches don't really appear to be non-profit organizations.  However, as was said earlier, they are the exception.  Your typical church has a membership of only a few hundred at most and a yearly offering that's about on par with a job at McDonald's.

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: pingangster

What do you mean by large religious organizations, and what do you mean by trustworthy?quote>

 

I was referring, in part, to the megachurches.   Do I trust them to manage money?  Based on the millionaire founders, no.  Why should I?   These guys have managed to convince people to give them money so they can live large.  

Which is the case with a lot of overpaid entertainers.  but at least ::: insert name of overpaid athlete here ::: isn't claiming to save your soul in the process.

Originally posted by: hym

Those churches represent a minority of the churches in the United States.  Many churches are so poor that they have to ask affiliated churches for money to help pay the person in the pulpit every week.  quote>

That sounds like a regional thing.  That is not the case where I come from.

Last I checked, one of the requirements of having tax-exempt status was that you had to be able to prove your compliance with tax-exempt regulations should the IRS come knocking for an audit.  If you can't prove compliance with the codes concerning tax exempt status, you're eligible to have your tax exempt status revoked.  quote>

And, yet, we still have guys who have gotten rich running "non-profit" organizations.   The system is not working. 

In your time on the internet, I'm going to guess that you might have run into a person or two who was talking about how "religion was being assaulted in the United States."  quote>

I see that the other way around:  religion is assaulting the United States.    We have extremists here who have the goal of changing our laws to comply with their religious beliefs, which is clearly not what our Founding Fathers intended.  

Originally posted by: SkiGeek

- Increase the amount of money that states and local communities can use for education by recapturing lost revenue (such as the property taxes the churches don't pay)quote>

Do you really trust the government to use that money responsibly?  Or will it just get wasted lining a politician's pocket or in government waste? quote>

 

Maryland schools rank 1st in nation in analysis by 'Education Week'

Seems pretty responsible to me.  I would rather my money go towards that than to go towards another shiny palace for a con man.

- Increase the amount of money that the federal government can use to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure.  (The highway system is federal.   Bridge in Minneapolis, anyone?)quote>

Considering that we're looking at potentially trillions of dollars in repair work, taxing a bunch of nearly broke churches is supposed to make a dent in this? quote>

Maybe not.  Maybe the average little rural church is nearly broke.  But what about the ones that are raking in millions of dollars and not using it for charitable works?   When a church shows a annual profit of $4 million [link], how can it possibly be considered a non-profit organization?

- Reduce the number of fraudulent organizations pretending to be churches.  Many a con man has received tax benefits by "forming a church".    Why should the rest of us pay for this?quote>

Maybe a better approach would be to punish the guilty instead of using a blanket approach that hurts everyone?  quote>

Okay.   Any clue how to define a "real" church versus a "fake" one?

[_Atticus 10]

Originally posted by: SkiGeek

I was referring, in part, to the megachurches.   Do I trust them to manage money?  Based on the millionaire founders, no.  Why should I?   These guys have managed to convince people to give them money so they can live large.  

Which is the case with a lot of overpaid entertainers.  but at least ::: insert name of overpaid athlete here ::: isn't claiming to save your soul in the process.

quote>

Granted  some  megachurches  are lead by  people who seek to fatten their pockets, that is hardly representative of churches in general. It is just not true to say that most churches engage in this type of activity. Punishing those that are truly seek to alleviate poverty and other evils  (most of them) would be just as fair of treating a Muslim as a terrorist, just because some Muslims do engage in terrorism.

-Pingangster

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: pingangster

Granted  some  megachurches  are lead by  people who seek to fatten their pockets, that is hardly representative of churches in general. It is just not true to say that most churches engage in this type of activity. quote>

I hope you are correct.  My personal experience does not support your position but I will readily concede that my experience does not include a wide variety of churches.

Punishing those that are truly seek to alleviate poverty and other evils  (most of them) would be just as fair of treating a Muslim as a terrorist, just because some Muslims do engage in terrorism. quote>

 

You have a point.   Generalizing tends to do a disservice to all.

 

There are churches that, as you put it, truly seek to alleviate poverty and other evils.   I have difficultly seeing that "most of them" do that.    In my experience, churches have been more oppressive than charitable.

 

[Zelgadis 638]

Though I know not all, perhaps not even the majority, of churches are like this...

But it's difficult to have respect for religion when I've read the books (Torah, Bible, Koran, etc.), and it sure seems to me that they ought to be spending their money on helping the poor and disadvantaged.

Instead, many spend their money working to make sure deviants like me don't ever get married and building crap like Big Butter Jesus:

Wow... I wonder how many houses they could have built for needy families for the money it cost to make that horrible thing...

ISF