Smart, folks, real smart … let’s take away the Church’s tax-exempt status and return to them the right to lobby the government … say bye-bye to LGBT rights, say bye-bye to lawful abortions … oh, how the Catholic Church can make America great again when they devote their financial resources to making changes to the law as they see fit …
Real smart … that’s putting religion back to where it belongs … in government !!! …
To the OP … that church blatantly violated local law … and they should be punished perhaps by revoking their tax exempt status in Oregon … I think we go too far to say ALL churches should be punished for the acts of just one …
I’m curious why the LGBT group wanted to rent a business owned by a group who advocate the death penalty for LGBT people … as in why would the NAACP want to rent from the KKK … was there a level of “Social Warrior” imposed by the event organizing company … if so, then their gamble lost and they when bankrupt … generally, it’s bad for business to take on these community issues …
No complaint was filed with the Bureau of Labor and Industry … the organizing company went straight to the Circuit Court … I have to ask, why didn’t the company want BOLI involved? …
Coincidentally, I am shopping for a place to throw a party, and most of the sites I’ve looked at are Churches. I’d be renting space that they do use for their religious stuff (usually the function room, not the sanctuary, but I assume congregants congregate there before and after services, and do other religious stuff there.) I hadn’t bothered to wonder whether my rental fee would be taxable to the church.
It seems inefficient for them to have this space that they need only a couple days a week and aren’t allowed to rent out otherwise, though.
Churches are free right now to advocate for political causes. As tax exempt organizations they are not supposed to advocate for specific politicians, but they can tell they’re congregation to “vote pro-life” or “vote anti-abortion”.
Who said one necessitates the other? It’s possible to believe churches should pay taxes and also think that corporate lobbying is an abomination that should be stopped, too.
Except, in this specific case (OP), the property that the hosting company was using is facing a street that is a block away from the church on the opposite corner. It is not inside the church at all, separated by a small parking lot and a small building, so the parishioners would not be sullied by the gay germs of homosexuals that might be at some point using the venue.
As I’ve posted in several threads, the ancient Babylonian clergy of Inanna-Ishtar were homosexuals and transsexuals. Obviously they had no such ‘moral code’ as the modern western Christians and they existed for well over 2,000 years before Christianity.
So you can’t claim anti-gay bias “is was a moral code predating all religion”.
1> The church is using the property for commercial purposes outside of their charitable status and is subject to taxation.
Therefore;
2> The church is subject to Public Accommodation laws in this respect.
They cannot discriminate against anyone when renting out the property.
It’s all about how one frames the argument, of course, and it’s not like there’s a natural line connecting the ACLU and the Metropolitan Opera either, but the free exercise argument is more general than organizational structure – that 501c3s represent people organized as nonprofits pursuing what they see as social betterment (in ways generally apart from direct political advocacy). Recognizing the value judgments of the organizers of secular universities and museums with tax exemptions but not those of churches is the first amendment violation.
But you’re okay with churches having this restriction removed? … unleashing the economic might of some of these churches on our Congress … “God commands YOU to vote Republican” … coming from the pulpit, that’s powerful stuff … there’s nothing about having to pay taxes that will stop religious leaders for doing this …
Besides … tax-exempt status is of critical importance for the worship of a Man who said “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” and threw money-changers out of the temple …
If a church owns a building, and the church holds no services there, but instead rents it out to other parties that are interested in renting out a building for their purposes, is the RFRA applicable to that building?
If so, then if I own a building, and I hold no services there, but instead rent it out to other parties that are interested in renting out a building for their purposes, then, as a secular entity, the RFRA would not be applicable. Then, is the church not getting a legal boon from the state that identical secular interests do not? How is that not the state favoring religion?
I am uncomfortable with questions like this, because a short answer would perpetuate the confusion the question reveals you suffer from and a longer answer is a pain to type out.
Short answer: yes.
Longer answer: It’s not particularly useful to say that the RFRA is, or is not, “applicable to a building.” The federal RFRA requires that no law Congress passes create a substantial burden on religious exercise as applied to any person, unless the government demonstrates that application of the burden to the person is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest.
So even a building that’s used for non-religious activity may enjoy some protection from the RFRA. It depends on what the religious exercise is, how the building is involved in that exercise, what the burden placed on the exercise is, and whether that burden is the least restrictive means of furthering a substantial government interest.
All those terms have definitions in case law, so I beg of you not to read the last sentence of the preceding paragraph and decide that you can assess what a least restrictive means test would entail.
The answer to this question is: yes. The RFRA manifestly favors religious exercise over secular exercise, because if a secular exercise is burdened, generally the federal government must only show a rational relationship between the burden and a legitimate government goal. That’s a far easier test to pass, and that means that religious exercise gets a benefit that secular exercise does not.
Instead of the should churches be tax exempt tact, it should be noted that if the church should collect tax for a business leasing it’s buildings, which seems reasonable. When the church files it should only be tax exempt for the portion that is religious in nature, and the rest taxable, which if leased out would be that part. So I see no case for the suing org to claim tax exempt status and get their money back from the church, perhaps if they want to go donw the line of a religious org they can perhaps petition the town/city for a refund.
I do not suffer from confusion, I enjoy it quite fine, thank you. I am working under the impression that the RFRA allows activities that would otherwise be prohibited by invoking religion. Is that not a correct assessment?
In the particular case in the OP, there is no involvement of the building in religious activity except as a form of income to the church. They are explicitly discriminating in their use a a building that is not used in their ceremonies.
I do have to wonder, with the RFRA so powerful, how it doesn’t run afoul of the first amendment that specifically tells congress that they may not “make [any] law respecting an establishment of religion”, and it goes about giving religious beliefs a favored status over secular facts.
You have a legal mind, I am sure you can think of six ways from sunday to use the RFRA in cynical fashion for the purpose of getting around laws that apply to everyone else. You are also someone with your own devout beliefs. Do you want other people essentially using the cover of your beliefs in order to flout the law? that’s the direction we are heading with this idea that religions get a free pass.
Is there anything to stop me from converting my dog grooming business into a religion of the worship of clean and well groomed dogs? I could stop paying my share of the CAM property tax, I could openly discriminate against both employees and clients. Why should every business not follow suit? You know Apple is pretty much a religion these days, turn all the “genius bars” into “genius alters”.
The 1st amendment does more than prohibit the establishment of religion. It also guarantees the free exercise of religion. RFRA is aimed at that second part. But I don’t know how thoroughly RFRA has been run through the courts, because it would have survive The Lemon Test (which is aimed at the establishment clause). That is also used to determine if the law is a real lemon or not.
