It's Getting DARK...U.S. Churces being forced to allow use for homosexuals

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

jmfcst, please listen to me. What I said was hardly what your describe,

The jmfcst does not wish to listen to you, as that would imply the jmfcst values your opinions and perspectives. The jmfcst is above that. The jmfcst feels that it is far better to set up straw men and preach the jmfcst's paranoid delusions at them.

Dibble, you really need to go back and reread this thread.  You’ll find I understood this case from the beginning.  In fact, I’ll even give you a little inside baseball insight into the NJ case that Brittian brought up but misrepresented…

This rather huge NJ church owned a large piece of land, but not all of it was improved, so the local authorities made them pay property tax on the unimproved portions of the property, only allowing the church to take advantage of their tax exemption for the immediate segment of land their facilities were built on.

So this NJ church, being led by a rather unsophisticated bunch, thought they’d get cute and decided to cut a deal with the gov – they opened a wedding chapel which they would rent out to the public (like a lot of churches do).  Now that this portion of their land was improved, they were eligible to apply their tax exemption to that portion of the property, and thus avoided paying property taxes on it.  But, being unsophisticated, little did they realize that renting it out to the public would open them up to lawsuits charging discrimination, once gay rights became law.

A similar thing happened to our church last year – half of the land we own isn’t improved, and the local authorities attempted to start charging us property tax on the unimproved portion.  But, being a sophisticated bunch and having IQs a whole lot higher than the government, we put our heads together and had our pastor, who just so happens to be the longest tenured pastor in the city, informed the tax agent that he would be organizing a meeting of the pastors of all the local churches (many of which also had unimproved portions of property that could potentially be taxed) to “discuss” the matter.  After we relayed our intentions to summon the political clout of the local Christian community, the gov tax office backed off and reversed its decision – they continued to allow our tax exemption to cover the unimproved portions of our church property.

So, again, you should reread this thread.  You might even learn something from the jmfcst.

[Sbane]

So you used mob rule to not pay taxes you rightfully owe? Sounds "sophisticated". Anyways, all churches should have their tax exemption taken away.

[Franzl]

So you used mob rule to not pay taxes you rightfully owe? Sounds "sophisticated". Anyways, all churches should have their tax exemption taken away.

Hey, be happy you're just dealing with a tax exemption and not with a state that actually raises a church tax!

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

You guaranteed your church's finances because you anticipate it being sued into oblivion by gays?

not sure I would describe it that way...rather we made internal arrangements to pay off our bank note for at least two primary reasons:

1) we did NOT want financial obligations to an entity (the bank) backed by the government (FDIC), because once homosexual rights are mandated (either by the legislature or the courts) banks will be required to call in loans made to organizations that "discriminate" against homosexual activities.

2) to get completely out of debt in order to lower our operating costs so that we could remain financially viable when we have to eventually forgo our 501c tax exemption. 

---

So, as you can no see, this is NOT the jmfcst spouting his own fantasies, rather this is a legal battle that has been raging for years, and both sides are organizing financially for the coming legal battle.

In the end, 501c or no 501c, 1st and 5th amendment or no 1st and 5th amendment, we realize this is going to be a losing political and legal battle.  We’re simply trying to prolong the day when we have no church building to meet in.

[Brittain33]

This sounds like a completely different case. It doesn't fit the description of the Ocean Grove pavilion where they registered the site as "public" to get a tax exemption and didn't post any religious tests for weddings on their web site renting it out for $250 a pop.

In any case, if they opened up a separate wedding chapel to be rented out to people outside of their congregation to make extra money, they're pretty clearly running a business, not carrying out services for themselves.

jmfcst, please listen to me. What I said was hardly what your describe,

The jmfcst does not wish to listen to you, as that would imply the jmfcst values your opinions and perspectives. The jmfcst is above that. The jmfcst feels that it is far better to set up straw men and preach the jmfcst's paranoid delusions at them.

Dibble, you really need to go back and reread this thread.  You’ll find I understood this case from the beginning.  In fact, I’ll even give you a little inside baseball insight into the NJ case that Brittian brought up but misrepresented…

This rather huge NJ church owned a large piece of land, but not all of it was improved, so the local authorities made them pay property tax on the unimproved portions of the property, only allowing the church to take advantage of their tax exemption for the immediate segment of land their facilities were built on.

So this NJ church, being led by a rather unsophisticated bunch, thought they’d get cute and decided to cut a deal with the gov – they opened a wedding chapel which they would rent out to the public (like a lot of churches do).  Now that this portion of their land was improved, they were eligible to apply their tax exemption to that portion of the property, and thus avoided paying property taxes on it.  But, being unsophisticated, little did they realize that renting it out to the public would open them up to lawsuits charging discrimination, once gay rights became law.

A similar thing happened to our church last year – half of the land we own isn’t improved, and the local authorities attempted to start charging us property tax on the unimproved portion.  But, being a sophisticated bunch and having IQs a whole lot higher than the government, we put our heads together and had our pastor, who just so happens to be the longest tenured pastor in the city, informed the tax agent that he would be organizing a meeting of the pastors of all the local churches (many of which also had unimproved portions of property that could potentially be taxed) to “discuss” the matter.  After we relayed our intentions to summon the political clout of the local Christian community, the gov tax office backed off and reversed its decision – they continued to allow our tax exemption to cover the unimproved portions of our church property.

So, again, you should reread this thread.  You might even learn something from the jmfcst.

[Brittain33]

1) we did NOT want financial obligations to an entity (the bank) backed by the government (FDIC), because once homosexual rights are mandated (either by the legislature or the courts) banks will be required to call in loans made to organizations that "discriminate" against homosexual activities.

This is just nuts.

Your church can do what you like with your finances, but this is akin to the nutsiest pre-Y2K preparations. We didn't volunteer to be your rationale for doing something which may not be financially sound. Believe what you like, but whoever advised your church that homosexual rights were going to lead to loans being called in on churches was either dishonest or very naive.

Nothing you've said in the past has disturbed me, but knowing that you and your congregation have convinced yourself that because I'm married, I'm going to knock down your church and seize the land for the state, and therefore it's ok to war against me as the enemy, is just poor.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

So you used mob rule to not pay taxes you rightfully owe?

No, we ALWAYS pay the required tax, and it had never been required of us to pay taxes on those properties.  The tax law hadn't changed, rather the tax officials interpretation of the law is what had changed.  So, we announced, in so many tactfully chosen words, our intention to use our constitutional rights to organize politically in order to unseat this tax collector and force him into another line of work...which managed to persuade the tax collector to renounce his newly formed interpretation of the tax code.

See, we actually know the scripture.  We read from it and learn from it.  And just as Paul exercised his rights as a Roman citizen, we also exercise our rights as citizens:

Acts 16: 35 When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the order: “Release those men.” 36 The jailer told Paul, “The magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released. Now you can leave. Go in peace.” 37 But Paul said to the officers: “They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out.”  38 The officers reported this to the magistrates, and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed. 39 They came to appease them and escorted them from the prison…

As in the case of Paul – a lot of Christians are a lot smarter than you think.

[Brittain33]

Why should the tax code encourage religious organizations to hold unimproved land, tax-free?

[Torie]

Surely it is clear that jmfcst has a lot of psychological energy invested in believing what he has a need to believe. He needs to believe that persons of faith are under siege, and the barbarians are at the gate. Nothing will dissuade him, not a legal analysis, not a political analysis, not anything.

I wonder if that extra piece of land is a separate legal parcel. If it is, it clearly is not being used for religious purposes. Land banking does not meet the test. And the Church used its political influence to get out of paying probably some pathetically small amount of property taxes, maybe what, 2 or 3 grand a year?  I would be embarrassed myself.

[John Dibble]

jmfcst, please listen to me. What I said was hardly what your describe,

The jmfcst does not wish to listen to you, as that would imply the jmfcst values your opinions and perspectives. The jmfcst is above that. The jmfcst feels that it is far better to set up straw men and preach the jmfcst's paranoid delusions at them.

Dibble, you really need to go back and reread this thread.  You’ll find I understood this case from the beginning.

Once again you completely miss the point of what other people are trying to say.

[memphis]

Surely it is clear that jmfcst has a lot of psychological energy invested in believing what he has a need to believe. He needs to believe that persons of faith are under siege, and the barbarians are at the gate. Nothing will dissuade him, not a legal analysis, not a political analysis, not anything.

I wonder if that extra piece of land is a separate legal parcel. If it is, it clearly is not being used for religious purposes. Land banking does not meet the test. And the Church used its political influence to get out of paying probably some pathetically small amount of property taxes, maybe what, 2 or 3 grand a year?  I would be embarrassed myself.

I don't know anything about his particular church, but in my hometown, churches frequently own large parcels of land. Frequently in very fancy parts of town. And to be fair, the Jews as well. The amount of tax money we forgo to give the Reform Temple is staggering. I checked withe the county tax assessor's site, and just their land is worth $4,000,0000. Which means the property tax not paid on just the land on just that one property would be in the neighborhood of $100,000/year. And that's just one religious property. And not even close to the biggest. And, of course, everybody else has to make up the shortfall. In a town where the median household income is just $36,000/year.

[LastVoter]

So jmf, wouldn't it be easier to allow gays to get married in the church than engage in tax dodging?

[The Mikado]

Yes.  Goldwater was right in 1964, at least in the ideal. 

The problem with that is that, in practice, it would've meant no real desegregation would've taken place, and might not have for decades to come.  Just desegregating the public sector and not the private, like Goldwater wanted, wouldn't have altered the fundamental structure of segregation.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Surely it is clear that jmfcst has a lot of psychological energy invested in believing what he has a need to believe. He needs to believe that persons of faith are under siege, and the barbarians are at the gate. Nothing will dissuade him, not a legal analysis, not a political analysis, not anything.

why do you refuse to acknowledge the handwriting on the wall?  for example, the SCOTUS just heard a case where the lawyers of the Federal Government joined with the ACLU and AUSCS in arguing (though unsuccessfully) that individuals rights against discrimination trump the church’s first amendment rights to choose leaders who agree with church positions.

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/hosanna-tabor-evangelical-lutheran-church-and-school-v-eeoc/

The Obama administration actually wanted to force churches to employ whomever the government stated the church should employ, with Obama’s solicitor general filing a brief in this case against the church rights as expressed in the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, and the brief argued that there is no general ministerial exception and that religious organizations are limited to the right to freedom of association that labor unions and social clubs enjoy.

http://www.justice.gov/osg/briefs/2011/3mer/2mer/2010-0553.mer.aa.pdf

This is NOT me being crazy, rather this is well known recent history of the craziness of the Obama administration.  The fact that the ACLU and AUSCS are slime in nothing new, but to think we are actually at the point in time where the sitting POTUS and DOJ would attempt to take away the rights of a church to choose its leaders would have been unbelievable just a few short years ago.

Luckily, in this case,  the lower court’s decision was reversed 9-0. So, regardless of your willful ignorance, the church is being probed in every legal facet in order to take away its right to practice and teach what it believes is the truth.  We are really at that point in time.  And within 10-20 years, maybe sooner, these rights will disappear.

---

I wonder if that extra piece of land is a separate legal parcel. If it is, it clearly is not being used for religious purposes. Land banking does not meet the test. And the Church used its political influence to get out of paying probably some pathetically small amount of property taxes, maybe what, 2 or 3 grand a year?  I would be embarrassed myself.

actually, it is being used for religious purposes as we have youth group activities in that field year around.  And the amount was less than $10k, but it was the principle that was most important.

[Torie]

Sigh. OK, jmfcst, I will bite. The case that your link and reference was a case of first impression, where there was a claim that the ADA laws were violated when a teacher was fired, and the teacher spent most of her time performing teaching rather than ministerial duties, so the issue was whether or not she was a "minister" given her mixed duties. That suggests to me a rather close case, yet SCOTUS ruled unanimously in the church's favor. On that one, the legal trail should give you comfort rather than feed your paranoia.

I rest my case as to my little armchair "diagnosis" of you. You see what you want to see, and hunger for a sense of persecution, perhaps to gain more of sense of what it must have been like to have been an early Christian, where they were victimized, before they gained power, and became all too often the victimizers.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

The first case was a case of first impression, where there was a claim that the ADA laws were violated, and the teacher spent most of her time performing teaching rather than ministerial duties, so the issue was whether or not she was a "minister" given her mixed duties. That suggests to me a rather close case, yet SCOTUS ruled unanimously in the church's favor. On that one, the legal trail should give you comfort rather than feed your paranoia.

oh yeah, I am really comforted by the fact it took the SCOTUS to reverse the ruling and thereby perserve freedom of religion.  I am really comforted by the fact the Executive Branch's DOJ argued that churches should have no more discrimination rights than unions or social clubs.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

So jmf, wouldn't it be easier to allow gays to get married in the church than engage in tax dodging?

tax dodging is perfectly legal, you do it every time you check an exemption on your tax return

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/tax-dodge

tax dodge - definition

"a legal way of paying less tax"

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I rest my case as to my little armchair "diagnosis" of you. You see what you want to see...

yep, all of the case law I've mentioned is simply me hallucinating.  People that are against freedom of religion aren't really probing every legal avenue to force churches to accept someone else's version of truth and morality.  In fact, there aren't any people opposed to freedom of religion.

And, don't tell anyone, but I myself wrote the Obama Administrations DOJ brief in order to make Obama look like an enemy of freedom of religion.

[Torie]

So jmf, wouldn't it be easier to allow gays to get married in the church than engage in tax dodging?

tax dodging is perfectly legal, you do it every time you check an exemption on your tax return

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/tax-dodge

tax dodge - definition

"a legal way of paying less tax"

My best advice (yes, I know, your world would be a more perfect place without my advice), is that you use the term "tax avoidance," rather than "tax dodge," which at a minimum has a negative connotation, and according to that certain Ivory Tower known as Cambridge, a negative (aka illegal) denotation.

[Torie]

I rest my case as to my little armchair "diagnosis" of you. You see what you want to see...

yep, all of the case law I've mentioned is simply me hallucinating.  People that are against freedom of religion aren't really probing every legal avenue to force churches to accept someone else's version of truth and morality.  In fact, there aren't any people opposed to freedom of religion.

And, don't tell anyone, but I myself wrote the Obama Administrations DOJ brief in order to make Obama look like an enemy of freedom of religion.

Perhaps it would be more useful to revert as I did to the specific facts of the case which you yourself put on the table, rather than just making the same assertion(s) over and over and over again, using different words, some of them admittedly quite colorfully apocalyptic, which perhaps has a certain value in and of itself.

I need to get back to typing this freaking contract now, for which a client is pining. The damn thing involves admitting yet a fourth class of partner, which screws up all the definitions I used in the partnership agreement to distinguish the rights and duties of the existing three piles, and it is getting me irritable. Everybody is irritable today.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

So jmf, wouldn't it be easier to allow gays to get married in the church than engage in tax dodging?

tax dodging is perfectly legal, you do it every time you check an exemption on your tax return

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/tax-dodge

tax dodge - definition

"a legal way of paying less tax"

My best advice (yes, I know, your world would be a more perfect place without my advice), is that you use the term "tax avoidance," rather than "tax dodge," which at a minimum has a negative connotation, and according to that certain Ivory Tower known as Cambridge, a negative (aka illegal) denotation.

tax dodge is not a legal term, Seatown may not know that.

also, is that Cambridge Univerisity in England, as in "on the other side of the pond"?...the British definition of "tax dodge" may actually be illegal, but the way it is used in the US press, it isn't, it simply means tax avoidance (legal), as opposed to tax evasion (illegal)

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

come to think of it, the example sentence doesn't even have illegal connotations in America:

"Stakeholders pensions have unintentionally provided the wealthy with a useful tax dodge." 

If such a sentence were stated in American press, it would simply mean:

"the laws governing the pensions unintentionally provided the wealthy will a useful tax loophole".

but, you and I seem to be on the same page here, so no worries.  it was just interesting.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Why should the tax code encourage religious organizations to hold unimproved land, tax-free?

Here is a pic to help you understand the situation in our case:



The area I outlined in red is the extent of the entire church property.  As you can see, the building is located on the front (Eastern) portion of the property with the front of the building facing the main road (the other “road” running East and West down the South side of the property is actually unpaved and belongs the adjacent property).

The back (Western) portion of the church grounds I have shaded in the pic, and this is the portion the tax official wanted us to start paying property taxes on.  It is totally inaccessible to the public and is not even adjacent to a public road, and we use it all the time for outdoor church functions.

So, obviously, we laughed at the tax collector’s new interpretation of the tax exemption law and basically told him his interpretation was so idiotic, we were willing to bring the political power of the Christian community together and let the chips fall were they may.

Of course, he backed down.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I like how you concede the 'political power of the Christian community' when it doesn't benefit you to play the victim.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I like how you concede the 'political power of the Christian community' when it doesn't benefit you to play the victim.

I've never stated the Christian community in the area of Tomball Texas doesn't have political power - a good chunk of the people in the area still go to church regularly.