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Originally Posted by scaeagles
I believe there are a lot of organizations that should have their tax exempt status revoked. The NAACP, for example. They are non-political? Bwa-haha!
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This statement is irrelevant to the topic at hand. GD's talking about
churches and their exempt status. We aren't talking about other organizations. This is as irrelevant as talking about Clinton every time a complaint thread about Bush is posted. More so, this is about the hypocrisy of the issue. Will there be pro-Bush churches penalized for electioneering at the pulpit? Probably not.
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Originally Posted by scaeagles
So is it political to deny Kerry communion because simply because he is in political office and seeking the Presidency? Or is it treating him like they would any other member of the church who supported abortion rights?
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Kerry's been Catholic and pro-choice for a long time. Why bring it up during the election process? Why wasn't this an issue before the election? Why weren't there announcements about this beforehand? Because it was political. The church made it a political issue from the pulpit.
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Originally Posted by scaeagles
I say keep the hands of the government off the church. Separation works both ways.
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Yep. If the church is taking time during their sermons to tell its parishoners how to vote specifically during election time, this should be stopped too. This is bringing politics into the church. This allows for one prominent religion to dominate political life of a community that may not share in the religion's beliefs. That's dangerous. We don't live in a theocracy.
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Originally Posted by scaeagles
You are honestly saying that there should be laws over a church telling them they have to give what is considered to be a holy sacrament to those who do not meet the religious standard or face loss of tax exempt status?
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This statement is too Rove-ian to answer to, but I'll go there. This is not what is being said at all. The IRS has strict rules about electioneering. The church is trying to get around that rule by making a statement about people who are pro-choice. The
people they are referring to is Kerry. The timing of the whole thing was partisan. This could have been said about him when he was running for Senate. I'm sure it wasn't.
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Originally Posted by scaeagles
Then the original fears of the founders truly begins to be realized - a state run church (rather than religious influence on the state), a la the Church of England.
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Not only this, but I'm for certain that Thomas Jefferson knew the dangers of America becoming a theocracy. He didn't want the country to be run by churches and dogma. And the fact that we are at odds/at war with countries run by their religion, we should feel the same way.