More proof that I’m a slow learner. I see that a couple of months ago I shared a post on my Facebook page comparing Alabama and Saudi Arabia in terms of abortion laws.
The Catholic Church spent over 3 million dollars in support of the Kansas amendment.
But the Archbishop of Kansas City complained about the funding of the other side:
We were not able to overcome the millions spent by the abortion industry to mislead Kansans about the amendment, nor the overwhelming bias of the secular press whose failure to report clearly on the true nature of the amendment served to advance the cause of the abortion industry.
Extra shit points to the Archbishop for hammering on the misleading phrase “the abortion industry”. As though abortion services providers and abortion-rights advocates aren’t overwhelmingly operating on a (painfully underfunded) nonprofit basis to provide desperately needed medical care. Other than pharmaceutical companies manufacturing RU486 and the like, I can’t think of any organization that makes any serious money from abortion, so fuck that noise.
(Maybe we should start referring to the Archbishop as “a mouthpiece of the superstition industry” and see how he likes it.)
Not necessarily. If it doesn’t fall under an enumerated right in Article I, Section 8 then such a law would be unconstitutional and under the Tenth Amendment all such abortion rights (or lack thereof) would be within state plenary power. That is presuming that the current legal thinking that abortion rights are not protected by the Ninth Amendment does not change. Given what SCOTUS just did, I think they would agree with my logic [unfortunately].
Gee, I wonder why people are leaving his church in droves? Could it be because they don’t want to support hypocritical asses like this archbishop?
Yes, true, but what caused the landslide was the voters who want some restrictions on abortion, but not to ban it altogether. The idea of little girls being raped but forced to carry it to term shocked many people.
In Saudi Arabia, abortion is allowed in cases of risk to a woman’s life and to protect her physical and mental health. A pregnancy arising from incest or rape might qualify for a legal abortion there under the mental health exemption.
You think that the GOP is gonna get a supermajority in the Senate, control of the House, and the Oval office all at once? And that a few Republicans won’t cross the aisle even so? The idea is unlikely.
Given the current SCOTUS I think it quite likely that they would rule a federal law to codify abortion access as being unconstitutional, and then two tears later rule a federal law banning it as constitutional.
Absolutely!!
Driven solely by ideology. With precedent, law, everything in the entire legal system used only as an excuse to do what they want to do.
Way back in 2018, during the Kansas gubernatorial race, Fox News ran a poll in Kansas. 54% of the respondents said they were in favor of legalized abortion in all or some cases. So maybe the vote on Tuesday shouldn’t have been that big of a surprise.
If the Catholic Church is going to be getting involved in politics, maybe it’s time to start taxing the sh*t out of them.
And not the Methodist Church or the Baptists? or a Jewish synagogue?
Everyone has the Right to Free speech.
nm…nm…
I thought that if you had tax-free status as a religion, the trade-off was that you didn’t spend money on politics?
Tax any church that donates to political groups, right or left; and especially tax a church where the pastor gets up on the pulpit and tells you who to vote for.
I’d be okay with that.
In Kansas, a church cannot publicly support or campaign against an individual running for office. But an issue, like the proposed amendment, is fair game. Many churches in my home town, both Catholic and Protestant, had signs on their property advocating for Yes votes.
I saw none displaying ‘Vote No’ signs, but a few people posted pictures on FB showing churches doing just that.
No, pretty much all of them spend money on politics. Just not any specific politician.
And in any case- Corps are taxed on Profits. How much profit does a “non-profit” make? And gifts are excluded from Gross income. So, churches, even if taxed, would not pay any income tax. Mot to mention, treating one church different just because it supported the 'wrong side" of an issue is both a legal and moral violation of the Bill of Rights.
Churches do have to pay taxes on “unrelated” income.
Tax 'em all. I am taxed and I am not considered to have lost my right to free speech because of it.
I thought there would be a difference between the church / diocese, which is charitable , and lobby groups set up by church members?
The article says that the bishop spent millions from his diocesan funds on the campaign.
And no, I’m not suggesting tax Catholics because of their position. I would have thought any charities that spend money on political campaigns would lose their charitable status ? I must be wrong.
That’s an important distinction that I hadn’t considered.