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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 15619
[Civil]
Date Posted:
6/13/2006
8:35:19 am EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 6,998
RSS: 14,596
Comments: 4
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ACLU Sues Over Church Tax Break
Author: Anne Sutton, The Associated Press Source: Anchorage Daily News (AK)
Title: ACLU SUES OVER CHURCH TAX BREAK
The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska and two Anchorage residents filed suit against the state Monday over a legislative bill that maintains a property tax exemption that benefits the Anchorage Baptist Temple.
ACLU of Alaska executive director Michael Macleod-Ball contends the measure is unconstitutional because it favors religion.
The provision broadens what was simply a tax exemption for clergy housing to cover religious teachers' housing.
The Anchorage Baptist Temple appears to be the only religious organization in the state that currently benefits from the exemption, said Steve Van Sant, state assessor. City officials say they are still assessing its potential impacts.
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Community Thoughts: There are 4 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Church? | Jun 13th. at 12:39:16 pm EDT
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Ahr-Ohn (Bridgeport, Connecticut) - Email Me
"Sinz said teacher housing at nonreligious schools does not have a similar tax exemption, although the formerly church-affiliated Alaska Pacific University was mistakenly granted a property tax exemption for several years after it became a secular institution."
How does the State determine what is Religious and what is Secular? The Quakers believe that any practice, by which they can lay hands on the World, is Religious, and simply dysdeign Exemption as being a bit silly. Only once we define Religion, can we then define Clergy, and I still don't know how Probationaire Acolytes would not count as Apprentice Clergy.
Religion, related to Obligation, or Ties Of. Where a God was enfranchised, by Rome, to maintain a brotherhood, free of Taxes and Other Obligations, the Roman Youth could join these brotherhoods, forsaking their Ties Of Birth, in favor of New Ties. Where a God is simply worshipped, that is a Superstition, or Over-Standing.
How can a Religious Teacher not be Clergy?
Arawn
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| Equal Protections More Than 1st Amendment | Jun 13th. at 11:05:22 am EDT
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Terry (Irvington, Virginia) - Email Me
This case appears to be based more on a legislative action intended to favor a particular special interest, than direct separation of church and state.
If both of those principles plus privacy mattered to legislatures and courts, either most tax systems would be found to have massive defects, or no special treatment of some churches and religious properties would be tolerated, as it's impossible to extend present systems of exemptions based on 501 (c) 3, similar public spectacle business structures, or local legislative preferences, and have true equal treatment of private, secret, or non-corporate association, ad hoc or formal, or solitary religious paths.
Certainly the woods around my home deserve to be tax exempt, if a stone temple of some Baptist corporation does. They're part of the Druidic side of my path, and they're being used for a vision quest for members of our pagan men's group, though it's none of county, state, or Federal government's business that such religious activities are done there, or what those are, nor any of the religious issues 501 (c) 3 of local tax paperwork expect and demand of corporate exempt religions.
Certainly the land owned by local UU corporate church deserves tax exemption, if some steepled wood box gets it. Silly laws, church owned open wildlife space isn't exempt, unless one bulldozes paradise and paves a parking lot (in VA) . Law is overdue to grow up and deal with the reality that "church", defined in an inclusive, broad, neutral manner, means many things which are presently excluded from regulatory recognition in tax codes, which have an obligation to use an all or none approach to extend true equal protections, not special privilege to historic business like structures peripheral to select favored churches.
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