tax exempt

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. You know this is coming.

From TheFederalist “While most commentators are still focused upon marriage and federal versus state power, the actual questions before the United States Supreme Court on its gay marriage decision show consequences that were once dismissed as alarmist now seem prescient.

In the oral arguments for Obergefell v. Hodges last week, counsel told Justice Alito that if the court found a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, then religious institutions’ tax-exempt status is “certainly going to be an issue.” I concur with this reaction from Michael Greve:

[I]f the tax exemption jazz becomes ‘an issue,’ it’s decided the minute gay marriage becomes the constitutional baseline. Because everyone knows that. Because the LBGT folks already have those complaints and briefs in their drawers, to be filed (almost ‘certainly’) on July 1. And because DoJ and the IRS and OCR, in their last remaining eighteen months in office, are in a hurry to roll over to their constituencies and to hammer the hold-outs, in meticulous observance of the law. A hallmark of this administration. Or maybe they’ll hand out waivers. ‘I don’t deny that’ says ‘dare me. It’s not going to hurt me in this case, and I’ll plant a flag for the next cases.’

He is correct. The tax-exemption battle cases are lying in wait and have been for quite some time. We need to prepare the defense.”

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2. The Faustian Bargain Between Church and State

From TheAtlantic “It was Pulpit Freedom Sunday in early October, when preachers who’ve signed up to trespass into electoral politics go well beyond the limits their churches have agreed upon when accepting tax-exempt status. Organized by the conservative movement Alliance Defending Freedom, they praise or condemn candidates. They urge parishioners to avoid this politician or that one; Barack Obama was a regular target, even in a few black churches such as Hope Christian, because of his support for gay marriage and abortion rights. Occasionally, favored politicians are even invited to a service to be anointed by the minister’s endorsement.

Some pastors tread nervously onto this forbidden ground, because they don’t want to lose their churches’ tax exemptions. But others zealously hope for just that. They are trying to provoke the Internal Revenue Service into an adverse ruling so they can challenge the constitutionality of the law, which they believe violates the First Amendment. For many years, the IRS has refrained from taking the bait, and citizen complaints against churches’s electioneering have disappeared into the agency’s bureaucratic abyss.”

“The ban on electioneering by tax-exempt charities may seem high-minded, but it was enacted for crass political reasons. It may be a principle of good government to protect taxpayers from subsidizing candidates’ supporters, but the prohibition was added to the law to protect one candidate, Lyndon B. Johnson, who faced extreme right-wing opposition in his reelection bid for the Senate. On July 2, 1954, he rose on the Senate floor to propose amending section 501(c)(3), which already restricted lobbying. Now he asked that the ban be extended to political campaigning. “The whole thing was over in a matter of minutes,” writes the sociologist James D. Davidson. “There was no discussion, and the amendment was passed on voice vote.”

“Without the tax exemption, his center is hobbled. Donations can still be received, but the donors won’t get tax deductions. The organization would have to pay taxes on its income. But the larger result will not be silence, he promises. “The thing about a political movement is that people who are in it for the long haul like me do the best to adhere to the rules and regulations,” he said. “The government can’t take away our right to free speech by denying us a forum … If they say we can’t assemble under this umbrella, then we’re going to assemble under another. They’re not going to stop the true believers.””

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3. The assassin’s veto.

From HotAir “New York Daily News columnist Harry Siegel may not be a fan of Pamela Geller, but he’s much less a fan of those rushing to condemn her for her speech rather than lay blame at the feet of terrorists seeking to silence her. Having lived through the last round of Mohammed cartoon publications, Siegel blasts the media elite for missing the real threat while stroking their own egos by prioritizing their sneering at Geller over the threat to freedom of speech. In doing so, they are embracing the assassin’s veto, Siegel warns — after indulging in a short bout of sneering himself:

But the assassin’s veto, as historian Timothy Garton Ash termed “the use of violence to impose your taboos,” is pointed at her neck. The nastiness of her words, about “the savages” trying to impose Sharia law here, is no longer the issue.

The threat to Geller’s life for speaking is.

Yet many among the literati, who typically fancy themselves truth tellers and idol smashers, spent the last week competing to disdain the obvious and explain why the murdered Charlie Hebdo cartoonists weren’t worthy recipients of an award from a group dedicated to “defend(ing) writers endangered because of their work.”

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