I agree with this completely Freedom. What is with all this “tax exempt” status anyway?
It sounds to me like a “law respecting an establishment of religion.” Those laws should be stricken from the books. They endorse religions, which seems to me to be a bit of a contrast to the ideal of separation of church and state.
I trust you are in agreement with me here right?
The status in question is offered to colleges. At least in the case of BJU. The Indianapolis Church is another story, and it’s off topic.
BJU was asking for exemption because it is a school, right? So they need to follow the rules of other tax-exempt schools. Religion doesn’t need to enter into it.
If they claim to be mainly a church, and not really a college, then they can get tax-exemtion. But their degrees shouldn’t be recognized as coming from a real college.
First, I want to thank GL for all the back & forth with Freedom that I would have probably had to go through. You saved me a lot of time and trouble, GL.
Now, on to Freedom’s response to my message, waaaaaay up near the top here.
I had said, somewhat tongue-in-cheek: “Closing up shop and quitting would be a good step, yes.” You responded:
Sounds good to me.
Now before you get all pissy, I never said anybody should force them to close up shop, just that I think it would be dandy for them to do so. I’d also love to see the Christian Coalition close up, and the Institute for Creation Research, and… It would be a lot easier to combat ignorance if there weren’t such groups promoting it.
Yes, and? Do you have a point?
What are you babbling about? Are you suggesting I don’t have freedom of speech and shouldn’t be allowed to point out the intolerance of the religious right?
I mentioned “common decency.” You responded:
No. Just because one small fringe group believes something doesn’t mean the opposite isn’t a “common” belief among others.
There you go getting all pissy, before I even had a chance to tell you not to. Take a pill, man.
I didn’t “call for” anything. I said it would be a good step. And it would. I think it would be a good step for you to take a valium before sitting down and posting to the SDMB, but I’m not going to go over to your house to force it on you. I’ll just continue to point out when you massively overreact, like you have here. And I’ll continue to point out when the religious right – and BJU – does stupid things. Deal with it. Or don’t. I don’t care either way.
I don’t have to tolerate intolerance and idiocy. This site is dedicated to fighting ignorance, not ignoring it.
Actually, it only means that to a certain point (for example, human sacrifices would not be allowed under “freedom of religion.” But even beside that, you’re still overreacting to something I never said. Don’t try to read between the lines when the words on the lines work perfectly well.
“Atheists like you”? Puh-lease. (And, BTW, it’s “agnostic” anyway.)
Not if you continue to act this way, I won’t.
And who are these “moderates” you’re talking about?
Ignorance is Bliss.
Reality is Better.
Freedom:
Try to keep up with the news, will you please? You’ve already shown that you were approximately 20 years off (well, 50 if you want to get technical) on the dating of the policy (sorry about the pun). You’ve also evidently missed the news by 100 years that the Mormons don’t permit polygamy now.
I’m as liberal as they come.
If the administration of BJU wants to require the students to rub blue mud in their navels, thats fine with me.
So long as any student there may leave as they choose, and so long as they don’t break any actual laws, why shouldn’t they do as they please?
I wouldn’t go there, and I wouldn’t encourage my children to go there, but other than that, who cares?
He’s the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor, shouting ‘All Gods are Bastards!’
A couple of other points raised…
We live in a democracy, not a libertarian state. Paying taxes is an obligation, and I, for one, am proud to fulfill that obligation. Personally, I find the religious exemption from taxation to be ill-considered.
If you wish to receive government money, you have to follow the government’s rules, and the government must apply the rules impartially. I don’t have enough information to judge anything specific to BJU. If the government applied the rules unfairly, they were wrong.
Otherwise, as a private institution, they can do anything they want under the law. The law says you can’t discriminate by race. The law says nothing about a person having an inalienable right to listen to Amy Grant.
Regarding Waco… What a horrible, totally avoidable tragedy. I don’t care if you’re liberal, conservative or anything. The government, regardless of what they suspect, completely failed in their responsibility to avoid unnecessary loss of life.
He’s the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor, shouting ‘All Gods are Bastards!’
I can’t believe this thread has been reduced to this kind of bickering when we really ought to be disussing is this:
Isn’t that the biggest bunch of crap you’ve ever heard in your life? It is astonishingly, breathtakingly ludicrous. To make the leap from seeing a little interracial dating at a college to one-world government and the rise of an Antichrist? The stubborn adherance of fundamentalists to the infallibity of “scripture” is irrational enough, but BJU is making even nuttier inferences completely arbitrarily. Since when can any series of events, no matter how problematic, be interpreted as indicating the will of God? We see groups people hating each and conclude that God wants people to hate each other and so we make it our policy. But don’t the fundies cite as the work of the Devil anything which falls on the other side of their agenda? A sober interpretation of the course of events would suggest that God does not simply dictate events and that human beings have developed racial and cutural divisions as a result of living in separate parts of the world for thousands of years. If we were to imagine God intervening in history–by subtley inspiring some people’s better angels–it should be more along the lines of the Civil Rights movement starring Martin Luther King. Why not consider that part of God’s plan, bringing closer to fulfillment America’s example as the place whefe people of all backgrounds have together made a society based on freedom and equality? That along with Jesus saying “peace on earth, goodwill to all men” and all that implies. Instead the letter from Bob Jones U draws a completely opposite, thoroughly negative, and highly delusional set of conclusions and states them with absolute certainty without so much as a “we believe…”.
Monty,
I am well aware that the Mormons do not practice polygamy anymore. I was only picking out an example that showed a stron difference between a religions views of marraige and the laws.
My point is that a religion should be allowed to follow it’s beliefs along the lines of how people interact with each other.
Bob Jones U doesn’t support inter-racial dating.
The Mormons used to have many wives.
Homosexuals want the right to marry.
These are 3 very similiar example in my opinion. It comes down to a majority view trying to impose their standard of normalcy on everyone.
Considering that the 1st Amendment rushes to this issue, you have to at least admit that it was an important part of the Constitution when the founders wrote it.
Unless someone knows different, this debate has been about tax-exemption, not government grants. To me, the whole thing stems from the government interfereing with religion. There will always be a church somewhere that is conflicting with the government. The 1st Amendment tried to solve this by very specifically removing the federal government from regulating Religion.
When you read the Bill of Rights, please remember that it does not give us our freedoms, it restricts the government.
Sqweels
Add these to your explanation:
This was never their policy. Only outsiders put the word hate into the equation.
This is exactly why BJU dropped the policy. They realized the hate is was creating in the country, they saw that people were not seeing the love because of this policy. So they dropped it.
Believing in God does not make you perfect. In fact, part of being a Christian is recognizing that you do make mistakes.
If you want to argue whether or not the policy made sense, I doubt there would be anyone here to debate you. I am over-joyed that the policy was dropped.
However, I do recognize that if the government is succesful in harrassing this church, then it will move on to others. Eventually I will be dealing with it in my own backyard.
As if anyone gave a damn, it’s threads like these that have pretty much driven me out of Great Debates.
Uke
If you don’t like the thread, don’t click on it.
What don’t you like about the thread?
Debating the proper extent of government invovlement and regulation of religions seems like a good enough topic to me.
I wrote:
[qoute]We see groups people hating each and conclude that God wants people to hate each other and so we make it our policy.
[/quote]
Freedom replied:
My example was poorly stated. I could have said “We see wars occuring, conclude that it’s Gods will for there to be wars and therefore adopt as an official belief of our institution a policy favoring more wars”. This is the kind of conclusion their illogic could lead to,
Okay, Freedom: Exactly how many of the leadership at BJU have been arrested for their policy against interracial dating? None? That’s correct: NONE.
Now in the Mormons’ case, all those who practiced their religious policy of the time were arrested by the federal government.
What everyone here but you has managed to understand is that there’s a differnence between practicing a religion and getting the federal government to grant tax exemptions to the school run by that government.
Maybe you’ll understand it better in this short equation:
Church-run school DOES NOT EQUAL church.
Got that?
Monty,
The issue here is religous beliefs. Do you think the Constitution only intends to protect freedom of religion INSIDE a particular church?
I live in NJ, and the was a recent case in Newark about freedom of religion. There were two Muslim cops there who refused to shave. They said it was against their religous beliefs.
Now there was a way around this. All they had to do was get a doctors note explaining that it is medically required for them not to shave. No one would have even questioned it. On principle, they refused. They decided that since religous beliefs were protected in this country, they were not going to be forced to lie. They were going to stand up for their right.
It went to court and it won.
They were not a church. They were just two cops who had a religous belief that differed from the governments rules.
Religous freedom won out.
I am willing to tolerate a million little religous sects that interpret things a billion different ways. As long as they are not forcing anything on to anyone else, I say let them make their own decisions.
OTOH, Nothing scares me more than one government deciding what is acceptable and what isn’t. Once a government starts defining “correct” religous beliefs and “unacceptable” beliefs, we have taken a big step towards a state run government.
Freedom wrote:
In that case, you doubtlessly feel that the U.S. took “a big step towards a state run government” as far back as the early 1800s.
Because that was when the government declared Mormon polygamy to be “unacceptible”.
David: No prollem. I was on jury duty yesterday, so all thaks to you for picking up where I had to leave off.
Freedom:
Yes. And? Did the IRS recognize (or fail to recognize) a particular religion? No. They simply said that if BJU wanted to enjoy tax-exempt status, then they had to meet certain guidelines. Just like every other religious organization that wants tax-exempt status has to do. BJU decided that martyrdom was more their bag, and acted accordingly. At no point in time was the first amendment abridged.
Stuff and nonsense. If this were a widespread problem, then you might have an issue. It’s not, so you don’t. Once an entire religion is being forced to pay extra taxes, then I’ll stand up and shout with you. Until then, you are just failing to understand.
::tip of the hat to tracer::
“Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices.”
Yet they have continued to this day. Again, if anyone were to set up an organization that discriminated, and applied for tax-exempt status, then they would be turned down. Lack of tax-exempt status hasn’t penalized me, or made it harder for me to continue as a citizen. Howzabout you?
Second strawman argument.
Well, no. Because that tax money goes toward any number of things that I imagine you’d be pretty peeeved to suddenly lack. BJU wanted to get in on the perks of tax-exempt status, but still cling to their discriminatory practices. It doesn’t work that way.
Okay, this is known as hyperbole. Please demonstrate to me where, and when, BJU was harassed by the federal government. Otherwise, I’m gonna hafta believe that you…
Well, since I already knew the reason for all of the foofaraw, then I dunno how I can be considered a winner, as if this were a guessing game of some sort. But okay.
And I thnik that once this election is behind us, that the nice folk at BJU are gonna be in line for that tax-exempt status. So I would be willing to wager that this issue will be back.
And why is that? I also cannot imagine that they’re the only college that lacks tax-exemption.
That’s all right. You also think that there’s such a thing as sin. Just because you think something doesn’t make it so.
And when did the government say that BJU must worship the way that was acceptable? They didn’t. A branch of the federal governement said that if they wanted to continue with their current standards and policies, then they would no longer be eligible for tax-exemption. As stated, BJU decided to try and turn it into a religious war.
Waste
Flick Lives!
tracer
If you look back several posts, you will see that I said just that. Religous beliefs need to be set aside and respected unless it infringes on another person’s life.
I see no difference between:
polygamy
inter-racial dating
homosexual marriages
These are all relationships between individuals. The state has no business trying to regulate our most intimate relationships.
There is a differnece in looking at things here that we will never overcome in this thread. You look at this as a simple enforcement of civil law. I see this as an abridgement of religous freedom. I see no correlation between a religous institution and a non-religous organization.
Once again there is a basic difference in the way we interpret the facts. I don’t think BJU ever decided that martyrdom was “their bag,” rather, I think they decided to stand by what they believe. Our nation was made great by men who stood by what they felt was right. I don’t think they had a choice.
This is exactly my point, except that we have a different place that we draw the line. You admit that if this were a widespread problem, then you would be upset. I think that once it becomes a widespread problem, we have waited to long.
What constitutes a widespread problem? How many more religous institutions (any religion) will have to suffer before you think it is a problem?
I see the time to stand up and yell right now. When the first church is being screwed. I don’t want to wait until it works it’s way around and finally hits me.
This brings back that famous quote about not standing up when they came for the Jews, the gypsies etc… and then when they came for me there was no one left to stand up for me.
So while you see me as just failing to understand, I see you in exactly the same light.
Why?
My point is that taxes can be used to discriminate. You can not debate this.
What you see as discriminatory practices, I see as beliefs. Once again, I don’t think either of us will change the other person’s perception of this on this thread.
It all comes down to legislating morality. Laws that interfere with religous morals are unconstitutional.
Only time will tell. I tend to think that won’t. This attack on them by the federal government only makes them believe in their beliefs stronger. They are expecting persectuon from the government. Pressure is not something they will cave to, it is something that will confirm what they believe.
Sort of a side question, but if they really were would it change any part of your opinion?
I don’t really see anywhere else to go with this. We don’t disagree on any of the facts, just on how we see them.
I see the Federal government as having almost ZERO authority over churches, while you see the federal government having the power to make churches comply with non-religous standards.
a good friend of mine attended Bob Jones University, and we have discussed his experience there quite a bit. He and his (now-ex)wife dated for three years before “stealing” their first kiss. According to him the prevailing social dynamic on campus is “who does Jesus love best?”. A musician, he received a censure from the BJU campus (long after his graduation) because they had heard he was using percussion in his recordings. After his divorce several years ago he received notice that he was no longer welcome on campus, or in the baptist church.
I’m usually inclined to let people be however they wish, but I think that the attitudes and social values exemplified by BJU are some of the least healthy and most distasteful in our country.
“I don’t get any smarter as I get older–Just less stupid”
Freedom:
Not at all. At no point in time did the government tell BJU that they had to do things the way that the government wanted them done. Simply that if they wanted that sweet, sweet tax-exemption, then they would have to stop discriminating. BJU can have their almnae dance naked 'neath a quarter moon, and the gov’t should not be able to do a damned thing to stop them. If, however, BJU wants in on the perks of tax-exemption, then the gov’t, which allows that status, has the right to insist that discrimination cease.
They just happen to believe in discrimination.
Well, first of all, I would have to see some honest-to-christ suffering. Instead of losing tax-exempt status. Because of discriminatory admissions policies.
And you are certainly within your rights to do so. But as you have no doubt noticed, manny people will vociferously disagree with you, and call you out when you use hyperbole to make this issue more than it should be.
Well, yes. If there were people out to get someone. However, you have turned this instance into something approaching religious persecution, and it isn’t.
Beliefs that discrimination is just ducky. There’s the rub.
And religious morals that interfere with law are illegal. You don’t have to believe me, The Supremes said it first.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that the belief in question has now been stricken.
And they will not be persecuted by the government. Nor will they be pressured to believe what the government wants them to. So where does that leave them?
Dunno, I would have to see the other colleges.
No. I see the government as being able to decide guidelines that groups must adhere to if they want to obtain tax-exempt status. If the organization in question does not want to adhere to those guidelines, for whatever reason, then they are free to get on with their lives, sans the status. I dunno, it sounds like I just advocated, “almost ZERO authority over churches.”
Waste
Flick Lives!
Technically, I am not sure that the beliefs were discriminatory. It was not admissions policy that was the issue, it was the belief that inter-racial dating should be avoided.
This impacted all races equally.
Not because of government pressure. Dr. Jones was very specific about the reason the policy was dropped.
It was not a core belief.
It was not scriptural.
It was detracting from the message of the core belief, salvation.
If it was scriptural, the rule would not have been dropped.
He stated that they would not be seeking tax-exempt status to avoid the perception that their reasoning was any different than the one they gave.
I see favoring certain beliefs over other ones as breaking the 1st Amendment. Granting tax-exempt status to some religions but not others, is showing favortism.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion;”
Obviously we disagree on this. I see the Federal Government showing different treatment to different religous beliefs. This is completely against the spririt of the 1st Amendment IMHO. I don’t think we will make any changes in each others beliefs here.
:snort: Yeah. Right. Define “religious morals,” pally. You gonna tell me that I, as a devout Thugee and worshipper of the Great Kali, have a constituted right to commit murder to the glory of my Goddess?
Oh, you meant nice happy Western religions?
-andros-