The California law specifically exempts religious employers "whose main purpose is to inculcate religious values and who primarily employ and serve people who share their religious beliefs." Catholic Charities conceded that they don't provide a religious service, their work is directed to the public at large, and that three-quarters of their employees were not Catholic. CC is not associated with the church, and it looks like about 75-80% of their funding comes from government grants and private secular sources. (Their web site lumps donors in with a 14% that also includes monies from the United Way and the 'Combined Federal Campaign' drive, with the rest coming from program fees and investments.) Essentially, the argument was that if you run a charity organization, it may be a non-profit, but the determination of whether it is a religious non-profit is based on who you serve and who you employ, not what you believe -- even if your motivation and guiding principles are founded in your religious beliefs. One may argue with this interpretation, but it doesn't strike me as so intrinsically outrageous.
At any rate, this is somewhat far afield from whether churches should be able to get tax-exempt status. Churches themselves have been tax-exempt on the grounds that they're churches since 1919, if I'm remembering the year right, and traditionally the church doesn't even have to file for that status -- it's automatically granted. This usually runs into challenges when the church group itself is becoming politically active in an official capacity, that is, endorsing or opposing specific candidates or legislation. (Taking positions on political issues that are obviously also religious, like gay marriage or abortion, is a different matter.) When it chooses to break the church-state boundary on its own, it may lose some of the privileges that separation has been deemed to provide. Obviously, the case can be made that a church is, in some sense, freer if it goes ahead and forgoes the tax-exempt status.
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2004-05-20 10:36 (UTC)At any rate, this is somewhat far afield from whether churches should be able to get tax-exempt status. Churches themselves have been tax-exempt on the grounds that they're churches since 1919, if I'm remembering the year right, and traditionally the church doesn't even have to file for that status -- it's automatically granted. This usually runs into challenges when the church group itself is becoming politically active in an official capacity, that is, endorsing or opposing specific candidates or legislation. (Taking positions on political issues that are obviously also religious, like gay marriage or abortion, is a different matter.) When it chooses to break the church-state boundary on its own, it may lose some of the privileges that separation has been deemed to provide. Obviously, the case can be made that a church is, in some sense, freer if it goes ahead and forgoes the tax-exempt status.