![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Grr.
The good folks in Texas have decided that
Unitarian Universalism is not a religion because it "does not have one system of belief." The state comptroller's office denied them tax-exempt status, and says for any organization to qualify as a religion, members must have "a belief in God, gods, or a higher power."
Now, I'll grant that UU is an unconventional religion -- being less about the destination than about the path (which is, I submit, what attracts people to it) -- but it has a long deist history, not to mention a close association with several of America's founders. And what about Buddhism, which isn't a theistic religion at all? Do we deny it religious status as well?
While it's easy to wonder why this is coming up now in particular, the more concretely disturbing issue is summed up in a brief excerpt from the Star-Telegram article that reported on this: "What constitutes religion? When and how should government make that determination? Questions that for years have vexed the world's great philosophers have now become the province of the state comptroller's office."
So when did the idea of separation of church and state fall so far out of favor? The country was undeniably founded on Christian principles, but it was explicitly not founded as a Christian state. Anybody else remember that? That was the specific intent of many of those founders -- people like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Paine, Unitarians or Universalists all. (From the very beginning, they were the denominations of "freethinkers" -- deist and, in most ways, Christian, but always willing to question authority, even seemingly divine authority. The actual doctrines that both unitarianism and universalism name are, by canonical Christian doctrine, heretical.)
Quite frankly, I'm not sure how many of them would have approved of the idea of a tax-exempt status for any religion. (Ethan Allen, who UUs claim but who had little use for anything resembling organized religion, surely wouldn't have.) Yet I can't help suspect they'd be uncomfortable with how Texas is drawing the line.
Unitarian Universalism is not a religion because it "does not have one system of belief." The state comptroller's office denied them tax-exempt status, and says for any organization to qualify as a religion, members must have "a belief in God, gods, or a higher power."
Now, I'll grant that UU is an unconventional religion -- being less about the destination than about the path (which is, I submit, what attracts people to it) -- but it has a long deist history, not to mention a close association with several of America's founders. And what about Buddhism, which isn't a theistic religion at all? Do we deny it religious status as well?
While it's easy to wonder why this is coming up now in particular, the more concretely disturbing issue is summed up in a brief excerpt from the Star-Telegram article that reported on this: "What constitutes religion? When and how should government make that determination? Questions that for years have vexed the world's great philosophers have now become the province of the state comptroller's office."
So when did the idea of separation of church and state fall so far out of favor? The country was undeniably founded on Christian principles, but it was explicitly not founded as a Christian state. Anybody else remember that? That was the specific intent of many of those founders -- people like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Paine, Unitarians or Universalists all. (From the very beginning, they were the denominations of "freethinkers" -- deist and, in most ways, Christian, but always willing to question authority, even seemingly divine authority. The actual doctrines that both unitarianism and universalism name are, by canonical Christian doctrine, heretical.)
Quite frankly, I'm not sure how many of them would have approved of the idea of a tax-exempt status for any religion. (Ethan Allen, who UUs claim but who had little use for anything resembling organized religion, surely wouldn't have.) Yet I can't help suspect they'd be uncomfortable with how Texas is drawing the line.
no subject
no subject
It Encourages the Separation of Church and State
no subject
no subject
You are talking about the disbursement of taxes, which has everything to do with the government and what the people of a given state wish to do with that money, not the establishment clause in the Constitution, which is there for a very different purpose indeed (to prevent the establishment of a specific, state religion, to counter the notion of English religious dictate which rather peeved off the Puritans). To confuse the two issues, one very pragmatic and concerned with state politics and money, and the other of the mind of the framers, will never yield a conclusion of any sense whatsoever.
And Buddhism is considered by its own followers to be a philosophy, not a religion.
no subject
According to the Drepung Loseling Institute for Tibetan Buddhist Studies, "To the approximately 300 million practitioners worldwide, Buddhism is considered their religion. Like all major religions Buddhism contains an explantion of the origin of existence, a morality, and a specific set of rituals and behaviors." With all due respect, I am inclined to give the Buddhists more weight on this question.
no subject
Disbursement/collection, money. It's still a state matter and has nothing I can see to do with the establishment clause of the Constitution, the only basis anyone has ever claimed for a "separation of church and state".
And I've known several Buddhists, and my wife took a class taught by one last semester. Funny, they all call it a "philosophy".
no subject
I'm utterly with you here, and amazed anyone would argue otherwise.
no subject
There are several different schools of Buddhism which vary in their asceticism and their philosophical stance. The original form of Buddhism, Theravada, is extremely philosophical. It wasn't until it moved eastward, to China that Mahayana started making Buddhism more like a religion, which finally solidifed in Tibet.
Not all Buddhism is a religion. If you examine its Theravadan tenets, it sort of fails some of the important litmus tests of religion. :)
no subject
I'd be curious to see when the tax codes first places the exempt status on religious organizations, and what the precise wording is. Another thing to look up this weekend.
no subject
So, don't know what to conclude. The UU is experiencing what some christian churches are contemplating, and I'd have to agree that some government preference is being shown, with a footnote that while the preference favours a christian generica, it comes with a lot of (as they'd say) secular humanist provisions that "true believers" don't want to conform to either.
no subject
Witness the Catholic charity in California being made to offer birth control coverage to their employees, though it is utterly contrary to their belief. The church was essentially made to PAY FOR something it believes it is a sin, simply because it provides help to those who are not Catholic. Unbelievable.
That was the final blow for me and the ACLU - they described it as a "great victory for California women and reproductive freedom."
no subject
I never know what to think about the ACLU. Every time I start respecting it, it does something stupid. Every time I'm ready to utterly discount it, it does something I respect. It's by no means equal parts piss-off/please.
no subject
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.
no subject
So if the Catholic charity had only been more Catholic (for which they would have been bashed on many other grounds) and less generally helpful to the community, they would not have had to spend money to provide birth control.
Great state.
no subject
To give you a little bit of a background on the UU people, they were originally founded as a split off of Christianity. So their roots are, in fact, with the same religion that Bush is a fundamentalist of. They split on the Unitarian ideal, originally -- that Jesus Christ was a teacher/philosopher, not a 'trinity' of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So saying that these people aren't a real religion is, in my opinion, like saying most of Chrisianity isn't a real religion. The UUs do teach Christian philosophies, but they teach them alongside Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Native American Religions, etc. Just because they're not Evangelical Bible-beating holy-rollers shouldn't declassify them as a Christian-founded religion, though. The UUs facilitate the quest for truth, but acknowledge that what is true for one person isn't true for everyone -- you must know this because you mentioned that they concentrate on the path and not the ends. Many UU members believe in a God, divine spirit, or "higher power" as the retarded Texas legislature put it.
UU is also a very well-established religion/philosophy. It's not something that sprung up out of the ground like other Texan beauties, such as the Branch Davidian cult. UU members are not gun-toting lunatics -- you would be hard pressed to find a single one carrying a gun. But with membership totaling up to something like 2 million worldwide, and with over a thousand established centers of worship just in this country, plus two seminaries at prestigious universities (University of Chicago and University of California-Berkeley), it would be difficult to deny that they've been a long-established religion that's been around for ages.
So knowing all this, plus everything you've mentioned about what is considered religion, I think it's safe to say there has to be some other driving force behind this. I doubt there's a single mind on the Texas Legislature -- Comptroller included -- that is capable of even knowing what a theology is, let alone getting to hand-pick what it is. I imagine this will go to court, quickly, and that it will be struck down as unconstitutional. Some rednecked bull-whipping cowboy fucktard isn't going to have the last say.
(Just one last note: Ben Franklin wasn't a UU -- he was a Quaker who attended a Unitarian church once or twice when he was in England).
no subject
There may well be political components to this, of course -- it's hard not to notice the timing of this, since the UU church has been rather vocal about supporting gay marriage -- but the Star-Telegram article noted that the comptroller's office has been more active than usual in denying tax-exempt status to churches in the last few years, and that most of the churches denied are "non-traditional" ones. This leads me to suspect that it's less political than an act of essentially misguided moralism.
no subject
comptroller's office has been more active than usual in denying tax-exempt status to churches in the last few years, and that most of the churches denied are "non-traditional" ones.
Even if they focus on tradition, it's been the tradition of the UUs to be liberal about their religion. And quite frankly, the argument could be made that Evangelical Christianity is not even close to being traditionalist -- that'd leave Eastern Orthodoxy and Latin Roman Catholic in the Christianity bunch.
no subject
no subject
Cetas
no subject
Yet, I wonder. Why are we treating churches as seperate from other businesses? In my opinion, they should be treated as any other 501 non-profit organization, so long as they can meet those criteria, and if they can't, well, treat 'em as the profit-making enterprises some of 'em are.
After all, as "Uncle Bob" Heinlein said, if you want to make a million dollars, start a church!
no subject
If a church is being run as a for-profit enterprise it loses tax-exempt status. There are other restrictions that come with even the automatic exemptions, in practice, on what you can and can't do and still be considered a church -- but those limitations are (at least in states other than Texas) limitations on actions, not on beliefs. Theoretically, three people playing cards on Thursdays and claiming that forms a worship group could claim tax exempt status, but if they tried to reap some financial benefit from it, they'd be inviting a big heap o' trouble.