{"id":51707,"date":"2022-05-24T00:00:25","date_gmt":"2022-05-24T00:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=51707"},"modified":"2022-05-24T00:00:25","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T00:00:25","slug":"first-amendment-violation-nope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=51707","title":{"rendered":"First Amendment violation? Nope!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ….<\/em><\/p>\n

First Amendment, U.S. Constitution<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course, the First Amendment says a lot more, but this is the first clause in the first attempt to improve the nation’s governing document.<\/p>\n

I want to bring this up because of something I posted earlier about whether we can tax religious organizations if they seek to coerce or bully politicians into enacting certain public policy.<\/p>\n

I believe religious organizations that endorse candidates for public office or — in the case of the San Francisco Catholic archdiocese — deny communion to officials over their abortion stance make them fair game for taxation.<\/p>\n

Public policy = taxation | High Plains Blogger<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve seen some chatter out there that such a taxing policy would violate the “separation between church and state” spelled out in the First Amendment. I shall disagree with all due respect.<\/p>\n

The religious exemption is quite specific, as I read the Constitution. It declares only that Congress must avoid enacting laws that establish a religion. The clause makes no mention of tax policy. It says only that the government cannot force people to believe a certain or faith or prohibit them from the freedom to worship — or not worship — as they please.<\/p>\n

It appears to my reading that the Constitution grants considerable leeway to tax religious organizations if their leaders venture into the political realm.<\/p>\n

The late Rev. Jerry Falwell entered the arena in the 1980s and 1990s with his constant attacks on Bill and Hillary Clinton; so did the Rev. Franklin Graham with his endorsement of political candidates; Catholic clergy have sought to deny politicians communion over abortion policy for decades; churches with predominant African American congregations have been staging political rallies for many years.<\/p>\n

All of them are exempted from paying taxes.<\/p>\n

To ascribe some sort of constitutional prohibition from taxing these entities is to expand what the First Amendment declares beyond anything I recognize.<\/p>\n

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …. First Amendment, U.S. Constitution Of course, the First Amendment says a lot more, but this is the first clause in the first attempt to improve the nation’s governing document. I want to bring this up because of something … Continue reading First Amendment violation? Nope!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1738,9933],"class_list":["post-51707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-first-amendment","tag-religious-clause"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51707"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51709,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51707\/revisions\/51709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}