Did you read the post I was responding to because you seem to think that "separate set of books here refers to some sort of attempt to hide income rather than keeping one set of books for the abortion operations and another set of books for the non-abortion operations of planned parenthood.
The monies for abortion and non-abortion services are separate. Completely separate.
If you give $100 to PP they can do what they want with it. It could go to abortion services or something else.
However, you can absolutely restrict your donation and specify that you do not want it to go to abortion services. To the extent that an unrestricted donation can offset the restricted donation then yes, the money is fungible.
However, the money from the feds cannot be moved if the abortion side runs out of money. They cannot just shift cash from the non-abortion side to the abortion side at will.
You are using quotation marks, yet their contents do not match anything written in this thread.
The relevant portions of the Eight Circuit’s opinion (addressing Luetkemeyer) are excerpted by me:
There follows a discussion of Locke v. Davey, with primary focus on Justice Scalia’s dissent, which set forth a view of handling a case like this which would require a decision in favor of Trinity Lutheran. The judge refused to adopt this reasoning in the face of what it considered to be the controlling Supreme Court precedent, and lack of any decisions limiting the effect of Luetkemeyer.
To summarize: In Luetkemeyer, the District Court found that Missouri had a compelling state interest supporting it’s constitutional provisions that completely barred money flowing to churches. Thus, even if the provisions were infringements on the First Amendment, they were valid through strict scrutiny. This determination was affirmed by the Supreme Court summarily (without opinion). Thus, the Eighth Circuit panel felt compelled to uphold the determination against Trinity Lutheran because controlling precedent says Missouri’s constitutional provisions are a valid exercise of the state’s power to address a compelling state interest.
They’re human, they’re fuckin’ wrong. A church is not a charity. I’m not one of those lunatics who thinks that anything you can get five justices to agree on is objectively Constitutional. They’re products of a society that have given them a host of biases and predispositions, and if the country survives long enough, reason will prevail and churches will be treated in a reasonable and Constitutional fashion - ie, fully walled off from the government.
A church is a non-profit organization. Even if you removed the word “religious,” from the text of the 501(c)(3) list of qualifying functions, and even if we accept arguendo your claim that “churches are not a charity,” churches would typically qualify as educational or under 501(c)(10) as a fraternal society.
The point being – that’s statutory law, not a matter of Constitutional dimension.
The money is still fungible. The fact of the matter is that as long as unrestricted money exceeds abortion expenses, keeping two sets of books is entirely a function of optics and not actual economic effect.
Similarly, as long as the cost of the playground improvement that the grant is supposed to fund exceeds the amount of the grant, it is irrelevant whether the church keeps an extra set of books to keep track of where the grant money went.
You quoted me saying “separate set of books” in your post. You indicated that this would somehow land me in jail or something. Perhaps you haven’t been following the conversation.
To catch you up, someone mentioned that giving the church money for a playground frees up money they can now using in religious activities. I pointed out that this is the same sort of rationale that is being used to defund planned parenthood.
Whackamole tried to distinguish PP by saying they keep meticulous track of their government money to make sure none of it is spent on abortion. I pointed out that money is fungible and it doesn’t matter how they keep track of it. You followed up with the notion that I would end up in jail. If I get $100,000 in federal grants for a projectand I spend $250,000 on that project, do I end up in jail because I didn’t keep a separate set of books?
Maybe I am misreading Leutkemeyer. My understanding is that the Missouri policy in question did not fund secular private school bussing and deny paorchal private school bussing. it simply limited school bus funding to public schools. This is clearly not a religiously based criteria despite the state’s argument at trial that they were ALSO restricted by the state constitution. AFAICT, that was a tag on argument that does would not have been made if a similar suit was brought by a Montesori school.
You’re missing the point.
Luetkemeyer is not being cited as controlling for having to do with questions of how the Missouri Constitution’s provisions applied. It’s being cited for the proposition that these provisions are valid exercises of state action in response to a compelling state interest. Thus, it’s irrelevant whether or not they would otherwise violate the First Amendment, since under strict scrutiny, a state is allowed to address compelling state interests in ways that would otherwise be unconstitutional.
Accepting this as true, that ends any analysis under the First Amendment. Period.
Presumably the Supreme Court will assert that the result in Luetkemeyer should not be read to reach so broadly. Possibly, they will simply hold that Luetkemeyer is not controlling precedent in any way (since it’s only a District Court opinion that got a bit jacked up by a summary dismissal from the Supreme Court). Or, they may attempt to distinguish that case so that it doesn’t result in everyone re-litigating a whole bunch of stuff that was already decided. We shall see.
If you a receive restricted government grant you must spend from that account only on allowed costs. I can’t charge a supply for my iridium catalyst project to my directed evolution account, even if they use the same stuff. I must keep separate books for each account and not mingle them. A renewal of one grant does not free up funds for the other. The funds are restricted and not fungible. Likewise I need to not pierce the veil between LLC and personal finances if I want to preserve limited liability, even if I own all the assets in question.
I don’t know that it is, actually. It collects a shit-ton of money from its constituents, to improve its facilities and offerings to attract more constituents, to collect more money and continue the cycle. This is exactly how businesses function. Different churches even compete with one another for parishioners. A charity doesn’t try to create more demand for its own services. The American Cancer Society isn’t out there trying to get more people to smoke.
A church is basically a for-profit group therapy organization with a “pay what you want” fee structure. The existence of megachurches cements the analogy - they’re just churches that use better business management principles.
I’m sure most churches SEE themselves as non-profits, and there may be some that function that way because of incoming donations being at a subsistence level, but just because your business doesn’t make a profit doesn’t mean it’s a non-profit. Yes, there may be legalese bullshit that allows them to call themselves non-profits, but seems like a legal fiction to me, based on tradition and not fact.
A business – an “organizational entity involved in the provision of goods and services to customers”* – can be a non-profit.
*Plagiarizing wpedia
I guess a credit union isn’t a non-profit either, by the above leaps.
Yes, I quoted the IRS code section that defines non-profits; you reply with your opinion that this is legalese bullshit.
Which basis should legal determinations like the subject of this thread rest upon?
I do wonder.
If I got together with a bunch of my atheist friends, and we bought some land and a building, and we gathered there once a week to sing songs and socialize, and we decided to become a fraternal society that does all the things a church does, except you know, believe in god, would there be any difference in my applying for a 501(c)(3) status than a church has?
I ask becuase I do not know. I looked through the requirements for being a FS, but it’s a bit complicated, and I am not sure whther I could qualify things as lodge and parent, and I thnk it would actually be a 501(c)(10), status. but there are enough dependencies and terms of art involved that I am not able to tell.
Now, obviously, not only am INAL, but I am also NASCOTUS, so my opinion means little, but in my opinion, if there is little or no difference in requirement between setting up a fraternal society for a bunch of atheists to get together and do stuff and a bunch of christians to get together and do stuff, then I would think that they should then be treated the same, and religion should not be an issue when it come to benefits.
If it is instead easier to set up a 501(c)(3) because of the religious status, then that is a benefit given because of the religious status that changes things enough that I do not think they should be eligible for the same types of things that other non-religious non-profits are eligible for.
When I was pre-school aged my parents put me in day care so my mother could go to work earning money our family desperately needed to put food on the table. The day care was located at and run by the local Methodist Church. And the church supported the day care as a part of their ministry providing free day care for low income families. No requirement to be members of their church. IMHO that is a fine charitable purpose for any organization and is not lessened by religious affiliation.
Now if you lived in the area and did not have young children you might not realize this church provided this service to the local community. You might even think they only collected tax deductible contributions to decorate their church. But you wouldn’t really know where the money collected each Sunday went. I didn’t until I was much older.
So the Methodist Church provided day care. The church our family attended was across the street from the Jr High School and ran an after school program for those kids. The Catholic church was big on assisting elders with home upkeep projects. A non-denominational church ran a soup kitchen and homeless shelter. Many churches I had no idea what ministries they supported.
So I wouldn’t make such broad statements as CandidGamera has. I really just do not know the value any individual church provides to society. And I think making blanket statements about the charitable nature of churches in general simply reflects an individual’s biases. What I might consider a wonderful charitable endeavor someone else may consider a waste of money. As a matter of public policy we don’t take such individualized determination of the value of the charitable endeavor into account when setting tax policy. Probably a good thing.
So I don’t have any issue with Trinity being non-profit. And since I want the non-profits I personally support to be able to take advantage of tax exemption then I simply must grant that those organizations that meet the neutral requirements for non-profit status should also have the same tax advantaged benefits. And so I stand for the proposition that we do not penalize a person or organization just based upon their religious affiliation (or lack thereof).
I’m not sure if we distinguish them legally, but in my mind I certainly don’t equate non-profit and charity.
First things first- a non-profit organization is one that doesn’t distribute excess income to shareholders. There are lots of different sorts of non-profits (something like 29 under 501(c)and others under different sections) and your group will almost certainly qualify under one of them (probably 501(c)(7)which covers social clubs and doesn’t require a lodge/parent system). As far as I have ever been able to tell,the main differences between qualifying as a 501(c)(3) and qualifying under a different section are whether contributions are tax-deductible for donors and whether/how much lobbying the organization can engage in.
I think the only real difference between religious organizations and non-religious ones is that religious organizations automatically qualify under the same section as charities, educational organizations etc. I’m not sure how much of a difference that actually makes , since many (although surely not all) religious organizations would qualify as charities even if it weren’t automatic.
Sure, rest your hat on a fleeting omission - I should have said ‘for-profit business’. Or, actually make an argument and distinguish a church from a for-profit business based on actual facts and behavior. Like one might do in a debate. Great, or otherwise.