While I share the trepidation of those who are afraid of the corrupting effect of Corporations buying our legislatures and writing our laws, a greater danger to democracy has already taken place with barely an acknowledgement. It is the extent of church involvement in our politics – something which used to be viewed as semi-prohibited in exchange for their exemption from taxation, but which is no longer enforced and indeed seems a lost cause. They are too politically powerful for any politician to dare challenge – and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family passed more legislation in the Arizona legislature last year than any other interest group.

While any effort to tax the churches has always been pooh-poohed in the past, in light of the churches increased political muscularity I can only hope that concerned citizens will reconsider our attitude towards these corrupt organizations that now far exceed the power, influence, and wealth of the Mafia.

How much does the privileging of these businesses cost us?

University of Tampa professor Ryan T. Cragun along with students Stephanie Yeager and Desmond Vega have published a study on the Council for Secular Humanism website:

Research Report: How Secular Humanists (and Everyone Else) Subsidize Religion in the United States

  While some people may be bothered by the fact that there are pastors who live in multimillion dollar homes, this is old news to most. But here is what should bother you about these expensive homes: You are helping to pay for them! You pay for them indirectly, the same way local, state, and federal governments in the United States subsidize religion—to the tune of about $71 billion every year.

The report is excellent and I urge everyone to read it. One it the points it makes clearly is that we have traditionally exempted churches because we considered them to be “charities”, while in fact a very small portion of their activities are truly “charity”.

 Wal-Mart, for instance, gives about $1.75 billion in food aid to charities each year, or twenty-eight times all of the money allotted for charity by the United Methodist Church and almost double what the LDS Church has given in the last twenty-five years.⁵

Running tax-supported businesses like schools and hospitals is not “charity”, nor are bingo games or multi-millon dollar political campaigns

The report makes clear that providing tax exemptions for true charities does, indeed, make sense but churches have abused their status and should be required to separate out for tax exemption those actual charitable parts of their businesses for tax exemption and otherwise be treated the same way that other service or business corporations are under the law – like Disneyland for the fans of Fantasy Land.

Herr Pope

Enraged that the Obama administration has not been cowed into submission over its demands to outlaw contraception and abortion and gays – and send more tax free money - the Bishops have gone nuclear.  And GOP. Vote GOP or else.

Personally I don’t think these Mafia Dons have the power to frighten their superstitious flock with visions of hellfire any longer, but even though their followers seem wise enough to ignore the old perverts and happily use condoms and Ortho-novum, somehow they don’t seem able to break the hold over their wallets and they continue to fund the right wing in America.

There is some kind of disconnect that lets them say that they aren’t freaky religious bigots, personally, but still they feel the need to pay so that Father Flanagan can be whisked out of town rapidly and quietly before that lawsuit is filed.

After all the Vatican bank is having a little trouble at the moment, and multi-million dollar anti-gay political campaigns aren’t cheap. They need the contribution of every parishioner.

We can only hope that one day they will wake up – but still if you are afraid of ghosts or hell – this is the video for you:

I think this has it’s roots in the fact that as a nation we don’t take seperation of church and state seriously, and never have. It has always been “God and Country”, from the time that the Battle Hymn of the Republic vied with God Save the South to see which side God liked the most.

In the past this has resulted in considerable social strife – from anti-Catholic riots to institutional anti-semitism to McCarthyite purges. The excesses of Nazis sensitized us to the dangers of anti-semitism and the McCarthy era sensitized us to the overreaching of triumphant christianity. By the time of the election of a Catholic president and the civil rights movement we seemed to be entering and era that kept state endorsed religious doctrine in it’s place.

The Catholic church, however, is not native but is run by a foreign power and was not affected by American public opinion.

Its battle against birth control and determination to secure government funding of its’ schools and charities continued unabated. American Catholics may not have agreed – and even may have used birth control themselves – but that didn’t matter because the Bishops run the show.

When the Catholic church expanded it’s battle against birth control to a battle against abortion and got a strong emotional reaction from its flock, Jerry Falwell and the Christian Coalition noticed. Abortion rapidly became a rallying cry of Protestant denominations too. They had a winner.

And the burgeoning gay rights movement ran smack dab into this confluence of church and state and Anita Bryant. Today opposition to gay rights is a “religious” legal issue for American christianity, right alongside abortion.

But this time they don’t have a winner.

Yet the idea that God trumps Country is strong in the American DNA, and remains the major obstacle for GLBTs achieving equality. Followers of the anti-gay religions still have sympathy for subtle expressions of bigotry even though they consider themselves personally liberal and free of bigotry, as long as the expression of bigotry is couched in terms of religion.

Here’s an example I saw this morning, discussing military “chaplains”:

A new moral difficulty for some chaplains occurred in September when the Army repealed its “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on homosexuals.

“For those whose faith says homosexuality is a sin, it poses a huge problem,” Macauley says. “Are they now required to deny a tenet of their faith? Part of their role in the military is to teach – to provide a source of faith for soldiers. What happens if they teach that homosexuality is a sin? What happens when a gay couple seeks counseling?”

It is a requirement of the job of a military chaplain to provide support to ALL of their troops and to put aside any doctrinal teachings of their particular denomination.

It is true that this requirement is burdensome to some chaplains. Lt. Gordon Klingenschmit has achieved great notoriety claiming that his religious beliefs are being suppressed by the military because they won’t let him preach to Jewish soldiers that they must accept Jesus or burn in hell.

Few of us have sympathy for Lt. Klingenschmit if he insists on preaching that Jews go to hell in his official governmental capacity – but it is amazing how many have sympathy for Chaplain Macauley who wants to preach that gays go to hell.

That’s what happens when you mix religion and government.

It’s been a typical week I suppose.

First our intrepid TC reporter D Morales posted a video of Arizona’s Superintendent of Education and all round bigoted racist Huppenthall comparing neo-nazis to “known homosexuals” and others who have “engaged in past inappropriate behavior”.

This was such a hit that Equality Arizona is using it in their email fundraising.

I urge everyone to contribute.

Then the Boston Pilot, the oldest Catholic paper in the country (and as such really only suitable for santorum clean up, not reading) published a scientific article explaining the cause of homosexuality.

A gay gene ?  Overbearing mother ?  Early exposure to Tinky Winky ? God created Adam and Steve ?

Nope.

The demons are doing it.

Devils are prowling around our pregnant women and when they find a vulnerable one are turning the foetus gay.

Now it turns out that the author Daniel Avila is not himself a theologian. He is a lawyer and the Church’s hired gun in their legal efforts to persecute gays, and as such spoke outside of his area of expertise (attacking gay people legally, not theologically).

So they have issued a “Retraction/Apology”

I think the Church really missed an opportunity here.

Just think, they could have started a small cottage industry of sprinkling holy water on pregnant women’s bellies (for a small donation of course).
Maybe even bless a cracker and superglue it to their belly buttons ( for a small contribution).

That would keep those pesky demons away.

Finally, out of fear that some might think our national motto was “E Pluribus Unum” our Congress passed a non-binding resolution stating that it is in fact “In God We Trust”.

Because that “everyone is welcome” idea is so 1940s.

It’s enough to make a gay atheist want to go invade some heathen country and bring them the benefits of freedom and Democracy.

In other words – a typical week.

UPDATE

Idiot Avila has resigned

Marriage adviser resigns over Satan-homosexuality column