Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Obama’s Lawyer To Supreme Court: Religious Institutions May Lose Their Tax-Exempt Status If They Don’t Back Gay Marriage


Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...

Shall make NO LAW ...

That means the government should stay out of religious affairs ABSOLUTELY.

There is an absolute wall between Church and State.

That does not simply mean that we do not have a religious government. It also means the government should stay our of religion.

Good luck to Obama and his minions if they want to choose such a battle.

This is a line in the sand. This far and no further. First Amendment is backed up by the Second Amendment.

From National Review:
Religious institutions could be at risk of losing their tax-exempt status due to their beliefs about marriage if the Supreme Court holds that gay couples have a constitutional right to wed, President Obama’s attorney acknowledged to the Supreme Court today. 
“It’s certainly going to be an issue,” Solicitor General Donald Verrilli replied when Justice Samuel Alito asked if schools that support the traditional definition of marriage would have to be treated like schools that once opposed interracial marriage. “I don’t deny that.” 
Alito was continuing a line of questioning started by Chief Justice John Roberts. 
“Would a religious school that has married housing be required to afford such housing to same­-sex couples?” Roberts had asked. 
Verrilli tried to defer to the states on that point, but Roberts pressed him about the significance of the court’s ruling as it might pertain to federal law. 
“There is no federal law now generally banning discrimination based on sexual orientation, and that’s where those issues are going to have to be worked out,” he said.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is total BS. Any attempt to enforce such an edict will be met head on. A progressive Waterloo in the offing.

In my church (RC) we do not have "marriage" we have the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. The church will only convey this sacrament on eligible couples. For instance divorcees are generally barred. The progressive fascists are walking into a minefield of problems if they think they can enforce their transient will on private institutions.

Bring it on chumps, it'll hasten your political demise.

Always On Watch said...

Is tax-exempt status guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution? Not that I know of.

Anonymous said...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabias-king-salman-replaces-crown-prince-foreign-minister-1430278377

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Replaces Crown Prince, Foreign Minister
In shuffling of officials, nephew is named as new heir apparent, nonroyal named as foreign minister
He replaced veteran Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal with Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. Adel al-Jubeir. (comments are interesting too)

Pastorius said...

AOW,
To answer your question from my perspective,

"Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion ...."

Taxes are levied by Legislation enacted by Congress.

Any activity by a government with respect to it's citizens or groups of citizens is legal in nature.

NO LAW means no legislation or activity that is legal in nature.

Pastorius said...

Anonymous,
Thanks for the link on the Saudi royal stuff, but I can't read it, as I do not subscribe to WSJ.

Is it important?

Anonymous said...

Sorry for the delay in responding...
The Saudi shake up can have important implications, yes. I came upon the link at BING's News headlines for Saudi Arabia. The link there remains readable without the subscription.
Cut/Paste:
RIYADH—Only three months have passed since Saudi Arabia got a new king. But in its foreign and domestic policy, it is already a kingdom transformed, and not necessarily in ways that please the U.S.

King Salman, 79, assumed the throne after his older brother, King Abdullah, died on Jan. 23. Within days, the new monarch reshuffled the ranks of power, delegating many day-to-day affairs of government to his son, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 29, and to his nephew, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, 55.

Under their leadership, confirmed by Wednesday’s changes in the line of succession, Saudi Arabia has become increasingly independent of Washington as it wages a war in neighboring Yemen while opening up to conservative Islamic clerics who opposed the late king’s liberal reforms.
[continued]

Anonymous said...

In a kingdom where elderly and infirm monarchs made all major decisions for decades, this empowerment of younger members of the House of Saud is a significant departure. It has already translated into a surprisingly activist foreign policy that has asserted Saudi leadership of a Sunni Muslim bloc confronting mainly Shiite Iran.

Angered by the U.S. outreach to Iran and eager to showcase its own ability to use military force, Saudi Arabia last month began airstrikes in Yemen, the first foreign war that Riyadh has run since it led a military campaign on the same soil in 1934.

“During King Abdullah, we did not have a foreign policy, and just watched events unfold in front of our eyes in Yemen,” said prominent Saudi sociologist and commentator Khalid al Dakhil. The new administration in Riyadh, he added, “is making the right choices and having the will to follow through.”
[continued]

Anonymous said...

heirarchy chart image
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei predictably had a less charitable take on Riyadh’s new approach, complaining earlier this month that Saudi Arabia’s traditional caution in world affairs has been jettisoned by “inexperienced youngsters who want to show savagery instead of patience and self-restraint.”

Though the world’s attention has focused on these changes in Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy, the developments at home have been just as important.
Along with his moves to curb Iranian influence, King Salman shored up domestic support by appeasing Saudi religious conservatives who had come to view King Abdullah’s tentative modernization drive, which included the creation of a coeducational university, with open hostility.

Within days of taking over, King Salman replaced the head of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, removing an official long criticized by conservatives for attempting, under King Abdullah’s direction, to defang the kingdom’s feared religious police.
[continued]

Anonymous said...

Under new leadership, the Committee’s enforcers have already become more active, resuming patrols in shopping malls where they have not been seen in years and raiding beach-front compounds used by foreigners.

Wednesday’s decree by King Salman also removed from her post the most senior female official in the kingdom, the deputy education minister, whose appointment in 2009 was hailed by the West as an encouraging sign of the kingdom’s progress on women’s rights.

Mohsen al Awaji, an Islamist lawyer and activist who was imprisoned six times, most recently in 2013, praised King Salman’s new outreach to fellow conservatives as “a very positive indication.”

“During King Abdullah, a lot of the decisions were taken against the will of the people—in internal and external affairs. King Abdullah had opened a very serious conflict with the conservatives,” Mr. Awaji said. “But King Salman is a man of common sense.”

While Saudi Arabia remains one of the world’s most repressive societies, the new administration in Riyadh has also made conciliatory moves toward Islamist dissenters, relaxing or ending restrictions on some, and ending King Abdullah’s policy of trying to crush the Muslim Brotherhood.

In a nation where stability and continuity have long been the official mantra, these changes are barely acknowledged in government discourse. But combined with the Yemen war, they have already bolstered the new king’s popularity, even among longtime critics of the regime.

“What was happening under King Abdullah was not real reform but fake liberalism,” says Saudi political analyst Abdullah al Shammari, a former senior diplomat and professor.

Saudi Arabia’s conservative brand of Islam is the glue that holds the kingdom together, and the new regime has wisely recognized the perils of attempting to dilute it, Mr. Shammari observed.

“Saudi Arabia is the center of Islam, and it is not our choice to be liberal. The moment Saudi Arabia tries to be liberal, it will collapse,” he said.

The architect of King Abdullah’s policies to roll back conservative restrictions—an approach welcomed by the U.S.—and to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood was Khalid al Tuwaijiri, the head of the Royal Court.

King Salman removed him within hours of taking over in January, appointing to that position his son, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who held the job until his elevation on Wednesday to deputy crown prince. The young prince remains in charge of the Defense Ministry and the inter-ministerial committee overseeing economic affairs and development.

Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who succeeded his father as interior minister and has worked closely with the U.S. to curb al Qaeda and Islamic State, runs a separate committee responsible for political and security affairs.

The new economic committee, in particular, has brought significant changes to the way Saudi Arabia’s economy is governed, with ministries formerly run as individual fiefs now put under the prince’s direct control, and ministers deemed to be underperforming fired without ceremony.

“Every minister knows they are watched much more closely than before,” said Khalid al Sweilem, former head of investment at Saudi Arabia’s central bank and a fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Prince Mohammed bin Salman “is very much involved and he is looking at what is good for the country, not at what is good for a particular ministry.” [END]

Anonymous said...

Regarding the issue of gay marriage, let's not forget it is not just a religious issue. It is also a legal issue. The courts can rule on the legal aspects of marriage, not on the religious union.

Where I come from, there can be two marriage ceremonies, but only one has legal implications (the civilian one which takes place in court.) The other one is the religious one, not legally binding, and which of course agnostics and atheists skip all together ...

These idiots seem to forget that the rights of the gays end where my begin. They CANNOT force a religion to chance their believes. I wonder if Obama is planning on taking tax exempt status away from mosques ... because you can bet the savages are not going to change their ways either ...

Always On Watch said...

Pasto,
Yes, federal taxes are levied by Congress. Local taxes are not, however.

I don't disagree with you Constitutionally. Not at all! I'm looking at the practical application of what might happen.

I also must point out that churches so -- as far as I know -- conduct marriage ceremonies for racially mixed couples. At one time, churches refused to do so on religious grounds. Remember that?

Pastorius said...

AOW, I don't remember it, but I'm aware of it.

I'm a little too young to remember that.

But you have a good point. The Federal government could put some sort of regulation into place which forces states to tax Churches. This is the way Obama has been doing business.

I do not not he is going to get away with attacking Churches.

I just don't think it's going to be peaceful.

Maybe he doesn't want domestic peace anyway.

Pastorius said...

Anonymous has a really good point.

My experience is that people in Mexico get married in the Church, but never bother reporting it to the state. It just doesn't matter to them that the state knows they are married. I would imagine it does not have the same tax implication that it does here in the US.

I think what you are saying, Anonymous is if we Christians define marriage in terms of a Union before God by the Bible, having nothing to do with the State, then we can do what we want.

It is true that Churches have gotten themselves involved with the state AND NEVER SHOULD HAVE.

For instance, "by the power invested in me by the state, I now pronounce you man and wife."

Also, many Churches accept money from the government to administer after-school programs to keep the kids off the streets.

No church should accept money from the government anytime for any reason.

we will be going through a period of cleansing.

Pastorius said...

To the Anonymous with the information on Saudi Arabia.

Thank you.

Always On Watch said...

Pasto,
This foisting of the gay agenda upon all of American society is being done "under the Civil Rights Act." That's how this coercion is being framed.

No church should accept money from the government anytime for any reason.

I agree!

But the wedge is that matter of tax-exempt status, which also applies to real-estate taxes, I think. Real-estate taxation will quickly bankrupt some churches.

See this information about non-profit organizations:

Section 501 of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax code exempts qualified nonprofit organizations from federal taxes. A nonprofit organization is an organization that engages in activities for both public and private interest without pursuing the goal of commercial or monetary profit. To be exempted from federal taxes, nonprofit organizations have to meet certain rules.

[...]

Nonprofits are also exempt from paying sales and property taxes....

Always On Watch said...

Pasto,
So, non-profits do accept government money in a way because non-profits are tax exempt.

Many non-profits sit on very pricey real estate.

Pastorius said...

AOW,
I think what you're saying is likely. Property taxes are, what, state? County?

Always On Watch said...

Pasto,
Real-estate taxes are levied by the local government: county, city, town.