A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

Well this is ridiculous

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State lawmakers are pandering pondering amending the Constitution for no good reason:

State lawmakers learned Wednesday there isn’t really a problem with churches being taxed illegally.

But they considered amending the constitution to prohibit the practice anyway.

“We do not have a crisis today of taxing religious property,” said Sen. Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis, the author of Senate Joint Resolution 2. “My concern is for the future.”

$24 billion of assessed value, or 6.3% of the state’s total is exempted. Of this, religious property is a subset. The property tax burden is, of course, shifted from that property to the rest of our property. I don’t have a problem exempting non-profits that provide a benefit to the community — personally, I don’t think the religiosity of the organization should count for or against the exemption.

Sen. Ford asked why the amendment was being considered if there was no problem. I know! Pandering to the religious base of legislators like Sen. Miller. This has been simple answers to simple questions. If my law firm decides to buy its offices, I think we’ll have to set up the First Church of Providing Legal Services at a Profit. “Of course we engage in for-profit activities. It’s dogma!”

Marking their territory

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More and more, I’m convinced I’m on target when I see certain loud, politically influential groups of Christians as marking their territory when they insist on displays of religion by the government. Consider the Summum cases out of Utah as described by Ed Brayton in his Dispatches from the Culture War.

Summum is a fringe religious group that wants to put monuments to their principles, the Seven Aphorisms, next to Ten Commandments monuments in two different cities in Utah. The Utah cities refused. The Tenth Circuit ruled against the cities and in favor of the Summum.

Now, the American Center for Law and Justice, a Pat Robertson legal group that has insisted on the availability of government property for Ten Commandment displays, argues that, of course the cities can refuse other religious displays. These groups want access to government property for their religion and no one else’s. They might as well be peeing on a tree.

SJR – 2: Free Ride for Churches

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Senate Joint Resolution 2 – Senator Miller. Proposes an amendment to the state constitution to exempt buildings and personal property regularly used for religious worship from property taxation.

What’s the justification for this, again? Exempting do-good, non-profit organizations from taxation is plausible to me. Many churches fall into that category. But that’s not what this proposal does. It exempts property from taxation for the sole reason that the property is being used to do obeisance to a perceived higher power of some sort.

Megachurch Scandal

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Do megachurches have more scandals than usual churches or do we just notice them more?

The 80-year-old leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch is at the center of a sex scandal of biblical dimensions: He slept with his brother’s wife and fathered a child by her.

Members of Archbishop Earl Paulk’s family stood at the pulpit of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church a few Sundays ago and revealed the secret exposed by a recent court-ordered paternity test.

In truth, this is not the first — or even the second — sex scandal to engulf Paulk and the independent, charismatic church. But this time, he could be in trouble with the law for lying under oath about the affair.

Ted Haggard and Warren Jeffs come immediately to mind as other leaders of large religious organizations that became embroiled in sex related scandals.

I wonder if there is a cause and effect there and, if so, which is which. Do these folks end up in trouble because they repress sexuality or do they repress sexuality because they were tormented by odd desires in the first place? Or, I suppose it’s possible that, per capita, leaders of large religious organizations have sex with their brother’s wives, homosexual meth dealers, and underage children at the same rate as the population at large.

Pence: Christian before Public Servant

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Mike Pence describes himself as “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.” So, it’s not surprising that he voted against the Head Start program because federal funds allocated to that program cannot be used for Christian proselytizing. The Richmond Palladium-Item takes issue with Pence’s reasoning.

Now, let us be clear in our belief that religious groups and organizations should be permitted to place religious tests on whomever they choose to hire or fire without interference from government.

So long as they are using their own money.

Therein lies the problem. A higher or at least more public standard needs to be met when tax dollars are at stake, as they are in this case.

The way to avoid that federal entanglement? Reject the federal dollars. Those cries of religious freedom are compromised by the federal infusion of funds.

Allowing churches to take government money to hire workers for the government-funded Head Start program, yet denying employment to particular workers because they are members of the “wrong” religion is unconscionable. Period.

(H/t Blue Indiana).

Looks like perhaps Pence’s priorities have him rendering unto God that which is Caesar’s.

The Medved Award

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Sadly, No presents the Medved Award to a sentence — a single sentence — that is such a perfect storm of wingnuttery and dumbfuckery that it really deserves a prize of some kind. The first one, of course, goes to Michael Medved for this: “Those who claim that the United States has become a rapacious, arrogant, destructive, domineering and imperialistic power must somehow explain the continued independent existence of the nation of Canada.”

Responds Sadly, No:

That’s a great argument and one with so many uses! For example, you say that Hitler was trying to take over Europe? Well, what about Switzerland? Huh? What about Switzerland??

People claim that Jeffrey Dahmer was a cannibal. But if he was, why didn’t he eat his next door neighbor, I ask you?

Fact is, we tried invading Canada twice and failed both times. I believe it’s a best out of three situation so The Rules prohibit taking a third crack at it. And, frankly, what the hell would we do with Quebec?

Bauer: Most Hoosiers are Christians

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Advance Indiana has an article entitled Bauer Applauds Prayer Ruling: “The Majority Of People Are Christians” in which he notes a South Bend Tribune article entitled Bauer: Christian Majority justifies House prayer. The story quotes Democratic House Majority Leader, Pat Bauer as saying, ”

“The majority of people in this state are Christian,” Bauer said, pausing a few seconds before continuing, “but if you exclude a minority, then you have a problem.”

Bauer derided as “censorship” a November 2005 injunction, ordered by U.S. District Judge David Hamilton, against the House’s long-held tradition of preceding business with prayers that contain words such as Jesus Christ and savior.

“Censoring one particular religion is almost reverse discrimination,” Bauer said. “We’ve had the Jewish faith and even a Muslim over the years.”

Advance Indiana comments:

“The majority of us are Christians” comment is a frightening comment for people who are not Christians to hear from such a high-ranking member of their government. Bosma was taken to the woodshed by Jewish groups when he used a “2%” reference, which supposedly represented the percentage of Hoosiers who were Jewish. Let’s see if anyone complains about Bauer’s comment.

Don’t mind if I do, Advance Indiana. Bauer’s comment is most likely just pandering, but I’ll go ahead and take it at face value, anyway. The idea that the Christian majority somehow justifies government-sponsored sectarian prayer is exactly wrong. The Bill of Rights was enacted to protect minorities against the majority. The majority needs no such protections against the government because, by virtue of their majority, they control the government. Bauer is wrong about this being censorship, at least any sort of censorship with which we need to be concerned. The Constitution is all about setting boundaries and limitations on government power. The right to private speech is expansive and protected — the government is limited in its ability to restrict such private speech. The government’s right to speak is not protected, in fact it’s limited by the Constitution. One of the limitations on government speech is that the government is not allowed to endorse a particular religion.

Rep. Bauer’s predecessor as Speaker of the Indiana House admitted that — while the Minister of the Day was at the Speaker’s Podium, the House was in session, and nobody else was allowed to speak from the podium — that Minister of the Day was a governmental speaker. It’s simply inappropriate for the government to be leading revival-style, clap and sing-alongs in the nature of what Speaker Bosma allowed to transpire with the “Let’s Take a Walk with Jesus” episode.

Our Founders did a number of clever things when setting up our government that have allowed our republic to remain stable over the years. First, they limited the ability of government to become intertwined with religion. Back in the late 18th century when our government was being invented, memories of the religious wars that devastated Europe were still fresh, and our Founders recognized that combining the two makes for a toxic mix. Second, they recognized that the majority did not have carte blanche to dictate to the minority. Look around the world and you will quickly see that when a religious minority feels alienated from their country, bad things happen.

Maybe somebody can enlighten me, but what is gained from a sectarian prayer to open House proceedings? Because, to me, it resembles nothing so much as a dog peeing on a tree. I think certain vocal and politically influential segments of the Christian population simply feel a need to mark their territory. Vague assertions about “tradition” by proponents of sectarian government prayer do not do much to reduce this feeling.

Dumbledore is Gay

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Hmm, I guess the wingnuts were right to oppose Harry Potter. Dumbledore is gay. Conclusive proof that magic makes you gay. Presumably reading about magic also makes you gay. Too bad Dumbledore died (punishment for his sins, no doubt.) Had he lived, maybe the guy who de-gayed Ted Haggard could’ve fixed up old Dumbledore too.

Church & State

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Ed Brayton has a nice post up entitled Rush Limbaugh’s Historical Ignorance in which Brayton debunks noted comedian, Rush Limbaugh’s, assertions about Thomas Jefferson and the separation of Church & State. The arguments put forth by comedian Limbaugh are pretty common by those who see church and state as two great tastes that taste great together, making the piece a good read even if one has no interest in Limbaugh’s comic stylings.