Taxes and Proposition 8

Since the passing of Proposition 8 there has been a lot of talk about where the money to get it passed came from.  There has been both a call for boycotts of companies owned by the Mormon Church and a lot of gay people saying they aren’t going to pay their taxes.

Generally I find boycotts to be kind of stupid.  It seems that they don’t really work because while you have people boycotting it also seems that it gets people on the other side to support those businesses.  Also sometimes people can’t boycott places because they just can’t afford it.

When it comes to the Mormon Church (and understand anything said here is directed at the Church and primarily it’s leaders because not all Mormon’s are on the side of inequality) I think the bigger impact can be made by rallying to have their tax exempt status taken away.  When you see the list of companies that they have a stake it it becomes more apparent that they are a for profit corporation hiding behind the veil of a tax exempt non-profit religion.

Some people say that the church itself didn’t give money so they shouldn’t loose their tax exempt status.  I’d actually challenge that because I’d look at the ties off all the people who gave money and how many of them worked for those companies on the boycott list.  The church may be able to hide behind it’s parishioners but, they did everything they could to encourage people across the country to give money.  (Personally I don’t think money should be allowed to cross state lines for individual state initiatives like this.)  They are also being investigated for paying to take people to California to work on the campaign.  And remember the current administration once threatened to take away the tax exempt status of the the NAACP just because the head of the organization spoke against President Bush.

I totally get why people like Melissa Ethridge and the person who commented on my last post say they aren’t going to pay taxes.  I would caution against that because deliberately not paying can get you thrown in jail.  However, you have to look at the obsurdity of the tax situation.  Here we have a huge number of people who are being made to pay the same taxes, and in a lot of cases higher taxes because they can’t get the same right offs as opposite-sex couples.  Not to mention that employer paid benefits for married couples are before taxes (basically not taxed) the money for the same benefits provided to a domestic partner are taxed.  That money comes out after taxes have been taken out of a persons check.

So that’s millions of people working, providing for themselves and their families, and they pay their state and federal taxes like everyone else.  Yet, they are not even close to being treated the same.  They aren’t given the same protections, they aren’t allowed the same benefits, hell they even have to fight to leave their hard earned money to the people they want to in some cases.  They do the same things to help this country run and don’t get the same things out of it.  Some of them still live in places where they have to fear for their jobs if people know the are gay.

The hypocrisy here is that this is all driven by the religious fear mongers.  Those fear mongers are then allowed to bring in all kinds of money for their churches (money that should be going to people in need) while paying now taxes on it.  On top of that they are then (thanks to the current administration and yes Obama plans to continue it) allowed to apply for grants from the government.  And where does that money they are asking for come from.  It comes from the tax dollars that we hard working Americans pay.  And that includes the tax dollars that gay Americans pay.  How messed up is that?

They don’t have to pay taxes yet, they get to not only have access to the tax money we all pay they also get to work to take away rights of the Americans that pay those taxes.

It is time that the religions of this country lose their tax exempt status.  Remember there is nothing in the Constitution that says that churches are entitled to anything especially special exemptions under the law.  What it does say is the freedom of religious expression.  And that is aimed at the individual it was not designed to give religions and churches the right to circumvent the law or have special privileges.