The agitators behind 'Pulpit Freedom' Sunday do not even contend they
are prohibited from preaching religion, they complain they cannot preach repugican delusions …
For most people there is nothing quite as obscene as an ingrate. Not
only because they refuse to acknowledge kind acts of other people’s
generosity, even to say thank you or I appreciate what you are doing for
me, but because they actually expect and demand more special treatment.
America is awash in ingrates whether they are the richest one-percent,
the oil industry, or corporations that receive special privileges in the
form of taxpayer largesse. Instead of thanking taxpayers for their
generosity, they claim not getting more is un-American. One specific
group that has no socially-redeeming value to American society or
culture epitomizes what it means to be an ingrate, and besides never
acknowledging the special privileges taxpayers provide them, they demand
more and are attempting to get catholics on the Supreme Court to get it
for them.
It is a source of contention in America, but the
idea that cults are allowed to operate tax-free and exist off of
other Americans hard-earned tax dollars is, to many Americans, an
obscenity of the first order; particularly in a nation founded on
secularism. It is horrendous that hard-working Americans are tasked with
paying for the services churches use for free, but it is an abomination
that many of those cults are using their free taxpayer-funded
welfare to force their delusions on the population. It is too much,
apparently, to expect cults to at least acknowledge the
overwhelmingly abundant generosity of Americans, or to follow their
bible dog’s admonition to be in subjection to the governing authorities
by adhering to one measly condition to continue receiving
tens-of-billions of free taxpayer dollars; no campaigning from the
pulpit.
Every year about a month before an election, an
ever-growing number of wingnut 'christian' cult leaders participate
in “Pulpit Freedom Sunday.” According to their covenant with the United
States to continue receiving ungodly amounts of free taxpayer-funded
welfare, cults cannot campaign from the pulpit according to a
change
in the U.S. tax code in 1954. The Johnson Amendment is a legally-passed
statute that prohibits tax-exempt organizations from endorsing or
opposing political candidates, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with
muzzling clergy from raining down hellfire and brimstone to scare their
congregants into following religious edicts. However, the agitators
behind Pulpit Freedom Sunday do not even contend they are prohibited
from preaching delusion, they complain they cannot preach repugican delusions and are seeking redress through the courts to use taxpayer
dollars to campaign for repugicans.
Part and parcel of the Pulpit Freedom Sunday crusade
is to videotape wingnut christian clergy actively campaigning for repugican and teabagger candidates on Sunday (October 5) in defiance
of the law and then send the videos to the Internal Revenue Service
director and dare him to attempt to enforce the 501c3 agreement and take
away their welfare. According to the phony christian agitators, Alliance Defending Freedom, “Pulpit Freedom Sunday is a strategic litigation plan.
Through tactical lawsuits against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),
Alliance Defending Freedom seeks to restore the right of each pastor to
speak scriptural delusion from the pulpit to generate test cases that we
can carry to the U.S. Supreme Court to end the unconstitutional
restrictions infringing on the rights of pastors to use biblical
standards to support or oppose candidates for public office.”
There is a longstanding biblical truth the fake christians running Alliance Defending Freedom organization refuse to
acknowledge in their illegal and sinful drive to bait the IRS into court
to allow “each pastor to speak ‘teabagger’ truth from the pulpit.”
According to the christian bible, the one each pastor already has the
right to speak scriptural delusion from the pulpit until they are blue in
the face, christians are commanded to obey the laws of the land and pay
taxes. In Romans 13:1-6
it plainly says, “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities,
for there is no authority except that which god has established. The
authorities that exist have been established by dog. Consequently,
whoever rebels against the government authority is rebelling against
what god has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on
themselves. it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only
because of punishment but also as a matter of conscience. This is also
why you pay taxes.”
There are several scriptures throughout the christian bible, old and new testament that reiterate the point that christians are required, on pain of death on judgment day, to obey the
government authorities and to pay taxes. Integral to “submitting to
governing authorities” certainly includes obeying the fifty year-old
Johnson Amendment and the conditions laid out in all 501c3 tax-free
agreements with the IRS. Every year for the past five or six years,
primarily evangelical christian clergy have defied their dog’s
commandment to subject to government authority, and blatantly violated
the law allowing the ingrates to receive tens-of-billions of taxpayer
dollars they claim is their rightful due in their crusade to rule
America by christian and catholic theocracy.
There is a very simple solution to the poor wingnut beleaguered christians living off the taxpayers’ “forced
largesse” that will allow them to preach teabagger and repugican delusions from the pulpit without fear of the dreaded IRS enforcing the
fifty year-old Johnson Amendment. Strip their tax-exempt status once and
for all. It will save taxpayers
well-over $83.5 billion
a year in lost revenue and give repugicans and teabaggers a frightened
captive audience the clergy can threaten with eternal Hellfire if they
do not dutifully vote according to repugican religious edicts issuing
forth from the pulpit.
Many people claim the cult tax-free status is due
to the ‘good works’ they provide for society, but they really do nothing
substantial; particularly compared to nurses, police, firefighters,
street sweepers, sanitation workers, and teachers who all dutifully pay
their taxes that end up providing free-services for cults; many
actively advocating eliminating the rights of at least half of America.
Besides the loss of revenue at the federal level resulting from the
clergy’s double-dipping income tax avoidance scam, every community in
America is losing billions in property tax because cults large and
small do not pay or even show up on property tax rolls like every home
and business owner. Why? Because they are cults, and as such they do
not pay corporate income taxes, sales tax, capital gains tax, or
investment tax in addition to receiving parsonage and faith-based
initiative subsidies; all funded by taxpayers.
Founding Father Thomas Jefferson believed, quite
ardently, that taxation to benefit religion was an abomination. He wrote
in his Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786; “To compel a man to
furnish contributions of money, or forcing of him to support the
propagation of his or another’s religious persuasion is sinful and
tyrannical. No man shall be compelled to support any religious worship,
or place, or ministry whatsoever.” Still, not only are taxpayers
compelled to support religious places of worships and ministries, they
are being forced to support evangelical ingrates that are blatantly
violating a law to give the catholics on the Supreme Court a golden
opportunity to force all Americans to fund repugican campaigns from the
pulpit every Sunday.
by Maressa Brown
