re: #290 Killgore Trout

It should. Instead of focusing on taking rights away from churches we should support their right to free speech and make them pay taxes like everybody else. The key is to focus on positive rights instead of negative rights. Focusing on taking rights away from religious organizations only delays the inevitable progress of taxing them and making them pay their fair share.

I have a problem with taxing churches as if they’re businesses.

What would the property tax bill be for the Cathedral of St John the Divine? Or the cloisters? Or St Patrick’s (takes up a whole block on 5th Avenue)? Where the hell would they get that kind of money? Do we really want to say that religions should operate like businesses?

We exempt them from certain worldly concerns (i.e., financial), in return for which they keep themselves separate from certain other worldly concerns (i.e. governance of people who don’t share their sectarian beliefs).