8: The Mormon Propositon

Cafe Society
121

Sure it was you:

And if that had truly been your claim, you’d hear not a peep from me.

If that is now the only claim you wish to defend… that’s fine. I, too, would not object if the IRS were to “look into” the matter. If the IRS were to suggest to Congress that the regulations be changed, then I might be fine with it, or I might be virulently opposed, depending on the nature of the proposed changes.

Yes, although I’ll just point out that what is at issue here is not simply an administrative regulation created and enforced by the IRS, but the law of the United States, made by the Congress: 26 U.S.C. § 4911 et seq. But for that nitpick between “regulation” and “law,” I agree.

I don’t need your authorization to read, refer to, and report your prior posts, much as you wish to pretend they don’t say what they plainly do:

Yeah, actually, I do. Because I can read.

Your statement is like saying, “I don’t know if President Obama was born in Kenya, and neither do you. As we discussed, courts exist to settle disputes. If there is a dispute, then Courts will decide. No court has decided the issue of President Obama’s birth. Thus, we just don’t know.”

But we do, even though no court has decided the issue. Because, you see, we can read his birth announcement in Hawaii papers, the copy of his birth certificate that’s been published, and form our own conclusion. I can even acknowledge that a mathematically-non-zero chance exists that he will turn out to have been born in Kenya and still say we know he wasn’t.

So, precisely, with this issue. You can’t retreat into saying that because no court has considered the issue, we don’t know… because a court HAS considered another case where expenditures were less than 5% and concluded that when expenditures are less than 5%, that’s not substantial. There may be a mathematically non-zero chance that this will change, but it’s on the close order of Obama’s Kenyan birth chances.

Again, if your contribution here had been to say, “Why, that’s outrageous! The kind of participation by the Mormon church should be prevented by a non-profit, and the law needs to change to reflect this!” then my comment would have been: nothing.

But you didn’t say that. No, no. You said:

That’s not “let’s change the law.” That’s “Let’s see if the law applies to what they did.” And having been informed that it does not, your reaction should have been, “Oh. OK. I did not know that. Why, that’s outrageous! The kind of participation by the Mormon church should be prevented by a non-profit, and the law needs to change to reflect this!”

At which point my reply would have been: silence. Because that makes perfect sense.

Own up to your quote, not alice, because it’s right there where everyone can see it.

122

Can we at least agree it was a dickish way to expend a lot of time, money and effort?

123

Your peeping notwithstanding, what I said first on the matter in this thread was:

So why are you peeping exactly?

No, but everyone can see when you make shit up and get called on it, when you use the grammar and rhetoric of extending interpretation as claimed when it has not been. That shit might fly past some people here, but it won’t go unnoticed by me.

So are you saying that in no other court case ever or in the future can the word “substantial” mean anything other than what it meant in the decision you referred to?

Oh.

Isn’t what you meant is that substantial was defined as it applied to the facts of that case, and yet other cases might have other facts and circumstances where “substantial” might be interpreted differently?

More nonsense peeping with you. But now that you have been shown to have been wrong about what you thought I said early in the thread, and having said recently that if you had caught it properly, you would not have peeped, let me be the first to offer you sincere thanks for your participation here, and wish you a fond au revoir.

That’s what I DID say. Maybe you should reconsider your claim to be able to read.

Thank you for agreeing with me.

Own up to your selective quoting, or being wrong about your inability to read as well as you think, because it too is right there for everyone to see.

The preferred method of owning up will be to make good on your claim of silence had I said what I actually did in my very first post related to the IRS on this thread. Better late than never I suppose.

124

Has a court case ever defined “dickish”? :slight_smile:

Seriously, that is a pretty mild way to describe a conspiracy to strip ordinary citizens of existing rights.

Let’s not forget, that unlike other States with Constitutional Amendments regarding same sex marriage restrictions, in California same sex marriage was entirely and everywhere legal at the time of the vote. On one day people had the right to get married, the next they didn’t.

What other rights do any of us have that we are willing to put up to a vote, especially a Constitutional amendment? What other rights of disfavored people would you like to vote on?

It is beyond “dickish”, it is entirely parallel to some of the most shameful episodes in the legal arena in our Nation’s history. It is hard to imagine anything less American in spirit or in deed.

125

Because there HAS been a case that forced the IRS to decide that 5% was too little. So when you said, “…regulations that are fuzzy as to how much is too much,” you failed to acknowledge that there IS law about “how little is too little.”

And you still don’t get it, or, more likely, refuse to admit it.

Other cases may refine the upper end of how much is too much. But in this particular case, there’s caselaw that says 5% is too little to be “substantial.”

Read that carefully: 5% is too little to be substantial.

Learn it. Live it. BE IT. I command you. These are not the droids you’re looking for. When I snap my fingers you will awake. So mote it be, so help me God, cross my heart and hope to die, forever and ever amen.

Not true. Notice that when I make a claim, I put in links to past statements. When you make a claim, you blabber unspecifically about things without ever specifying what, exactly, you might be talking about.

What a question. “Can” meaning is it in the realm of mathematical possibility? Sure. It is mathematically a non-zero possibility that another court could disregard that ruling and craft their own rule.

If only.

126

Is that you talking to the mirror still?

My point is that whatever that case was about, it is not the only way to measure “substantial”. If it is your opinion that that is the only way to measure substantial, wrt an organization’s activities, then you are a man of small imagination indeed. How would you have understood “substantial” in any sentence about any organization’s activities, tax-related or not, before this case locked you in with laser focus?

WTF kind of peeping is that I hear?

Yawn. you selectively quote, and only after you were called out in another current thread for arguing two sides of the coin.

That is related to the issue you debated two sides of in the other thread. I won’t rehash it here, as your position is too random to interest me anymore. Let’s agree to disagree.

[/QUOTE]

Let’s get back to the topic of the thread, which was review of a particular movie.

May I suggest that you open a new thread regarding this court decision you are so fond of and see if anyone cares? I am too busy to continue in this vein right now, but in about a month I might have time to have a discussion of that sort.

127

Which is it? Or both? Or neither? Maybe it was another messageboard. Or a dream you had? Bad acid trip?

And where’s the link?

128

I am not an expert in law or politics, but I think this quote is the most profound thing I have ever read on the subject of same-sex marriage. Thanks.

129

Excellent question. But since:

It appears I won’t be able to hold your interest if I answer.

130

Where do you think the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure came from?

(Hint: a vote).

131

Again, I am not an expert and I freely admit I can’t match your wit and wisdom. But I’m confused. Did the general population ever vote on whether to retain “the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure” after it had been granted? Or are you referring to the legislature vouting to award rights to the people? Those seem like two very different concepts.

ETA: And please don’t feel like you need to disagree with me simply because I liked a comment by not_alice. I am taking no sides in the argument about “substantial,” especially the endless “but you said that I said that you said that…” coming from both parties.

132

Or perhaps even more relevant, would it be appropriate for the general population to vote and decide whether to retain “the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure” for some minority group? And has this happened? Not to dis the concept of voting, but I would object to such a concept being placed on a ballot, much like I object to recently granted rights for gays being subjected to a vote of the misinformed general population.

133

It certainly wasn’t a general vote, but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen Bricker try to bury that distinction.

134

Well, I don’t think they are that different. The US Congress proposed the Fourth Amendment, and the state legislatures voted to approve it. In each case, these were people selected by us, the voters, to represent us.

But I certainly agree that you can draw a line between direct enactment of legislation, like California provides here, and “at one remove” enactment by legislators. I don’t agree it’s a tremendously meaningful line, but I’m willing to go along with the idea.

In 1990, California voters approved Prop 110, an amendment to the California constitution that gave disabled homeowners a substantial break on property taxes. Proposition 71 of 2004 made stem cell research a constitutional right in California. Proposition 99 of 2008 stopped the state from taking private homes and giving them to developers using eminent domain. I assume you don’t wish to wipe that off the books.

So – why can the voters legitimately act to prevent the state from improving an area by developing it, but not act legitimately by limiting marriage to a man and a woman?

I think there are two possible theories: (1) The “one-way ratchet,” concept discussed above. States can only grant new rights, but never curtail ones they have granted before. (2) You are simply convinced that it’s right to allow same-sex marriage, and wrong to forbid it, and don’t really care how we get to that conclusion as long as we get there.

Or there’s more options that I haven’t thought of.

135

You’re right. It was not a general vote. I don’t think the distinction is relevant, but since you (and others) do, I am perfectly willing to be bound by it.

Massachusetts has state constitutional provisions that offer MORE protections than the federal constitution does. In fact, it was this very difference that led the Massachusetts Supreme Court to rule, in 2003, that Massachusetts must offer same-sex marriage.

Now, how did the Massachusetts Constitution come to pass?

A general vote. All the voting public.

How’s that? Legitimate? Or not?

136

I confess my reasoning (and my approval of not_alice’s comment) is biased by some combination of your theories (1) and (2). Really, I can’t think of a situation where it would be appropriate for millions of television viewers to go vote on whether a minority should retain their rights, based in part on the voters’ predjudices and in part on the persuasiveness of the propaganda campaigns.

137

OK, that’s fair.

But… that’s pretty much how we choose our elected officials now.

I can only imagine your outrage if I suggested we limit the voting franchise to people who can prove they have studied the issues.

As for theory (2) – I totally get that. And there’s really no argument against it, except to say that if you approve a method today because it leads to a result you like, you’re in a bad position to criticize the same method next week when it reaches a result you don’t like.

You might say, “Hey, this issue is important enough that I don’t care – I’m willing to take the potential heat on future issues so we get same sex marriage now.”

And it’s hard to argue with that, because same sex marriage is in fact a wise and decent public policy. But I’m just suggesting that down the line, a judge will rule on an issue in a way that you don’t like. Maybe a Republican president will get a chance to name enough Supreme Court justices to swing things far right, and the Court will find that unborn children have a “right to life” under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Now, I’m pro-life. I think abortion is a moral wrong.

But if the Court did that, I’d be furious, and would fight to have it overturned. Because although the result (abortion illegal) is one I favor, the method spits in the face of what I consider to be our greatest strength: self-governance.

But that’s just an opinion. And a reasonable person can, quite reasonably, disagree.

138

I don’t really like the idea of American Muslim women wearing veils in public or bipolar Jews owning exotic animals. I want both rights legally repealed.

Regarding substantial, I don’t pretend to know how precedential and binding the figures of that one lawsuit are, but 5% of the Mormon church’s budget or income would be conservatively in the tens of millions of dollars and probably the hundreds of millions. It would not only be legally impossible for the church to give that much money to ANY political initiative, it would be completely unnecessary. That’s roughly like saying that if you buy a car for an elected official it isn’t a bribe unless you spend more than $250,000 on it (i.e. 99% of all new cars cost well under that to begin with so why would you spend $250k+).

Meanwhile suppose that I have a storefront church and my revenues come to $25,000 per year and I give $2,500 of it to Elect Charles Foster Kane in 2010. The Baptist Church down the street has revenues of $2 million per year and donates $75,000 to the same cause. Am I guilty of contributing substantially but the Baptist Church is not?

It’s impossible to state that the church did not create substantial funding of this measure in California (as they had previusly done in Hawaii) using the definition of substantial as most reasonable people would understand the term. Per the documentary- and the figures are documented- about 45% of the money for the initiative came from outside of California and of the outside money Utah donors gave three times more than any other single state. More money came from individuals and organizations in Utah, Arizona and Idaho (three states that have little in common save the nation’s highest concentration of Mormons) than from all other states combined.

139

The law does not prohibit them from substantially (or even completely) funding advertising or a measure.

The law (26 USC § 501(c)(3) et seq) says that:

Yes, their involvement in this campaign was “substantial.”

But the law doesn’t prohibit that. It looks at the organization’s total activities, and prohibits tax-exempt status when a substantial part of the organization’s activities are carrying on propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation.

First: you’re forbidden from directly supporting a candidate, regardless of the amount of money spent. And second, ten percent is an an iffy area where no court has said definitively if it’s “substantial” or not.

But if you’ll allow me to tweak your hypo a bit:

*Suppose that I have a storefront church and my revenues come to $25,000 per year and I give $5,000 of it to the “Rosebud” Action Committee, dedicated to pass legislation to recognize the great works of Orson Wells. The Baptist Church down the street has revenues of $2 million per year and donates $75,000 to the same cause. Am I guilty of contributing substantially but the Baptist Church is not?
*

Yup.

140

Legality aside, does this seem fair, reasonable and right to you? Or would wording to the effect of “to exceed neither 5% of revenues or $50,000” seem more fair?