# Churches and tax-exempt status



## BigDaddy (Mar 4, 2002)

Check out the AP story below from earlier this week. According to the story, IRS has concluded that some churches participated in political activities, thereby violating provisions classifying them as tax exempt. What are peoples' thoughts on this?

I am a devout Lutheran, and I can't recall a time when a pastor urged congregation members to vote a certain way or support certain candidates. However, a good friend of mine is Catholic, and he told me that this priest made no qualms about telling church members to vote for pro-life candidates, often naming specific candidates.

Has anybody ever heard blatant political banter from the pulpit?



> Feb 24, 9:33 PM EST
> 
> IRS: Charities Overstepping Into Politics
> 
> ...


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## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

Kind of heard the same thing from one of my friends that is a catholic. He was trying to tell me how to vote too. I asked if the Pope supported our intent to go into Iraq and he said "No". Seems to me there are conflicting sides. Vote Republican because of abortion issues, but as a catholic are you not supposed to support the opinion of the Pope which did not support the war in Iraq which would mean vote Democrat??

Maybe it is me, but I wouldn't support any church telling me how to vote. My Lutheran pastor has a sign on his truck "Jesus is neither a Democrat or a Republican".


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## sevendogs (Sep 19, 2003)

Go to Pentacostal churches. They shout politics there from the pulpit. Watch 700CLUB in Tv. It is all politics. Bush came to power, because of churches intervention in politics. Tax them, they are political parties.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

I say tax them also, then they won't be so ready to support all these so called "help the poor" boodoggles.

The black churches down here are extremely poliical and support dems so it goes both ways.

I'm catholic and most of the priests I've known, really all of them in the last twenty five years or so, were flaming liberal dems.


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## zogman (Mar 20, 2002)

Let's not forget the rest of the groups that have non-profit status and receive massive government dollars. They all are politicaly orentated in some form or another......... The churches are the tip of the iceberg.


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## sevendogs (Sep 19, 2003)

Bobm said:


> I say tax them also, then they won't be so ready to support all these so called "help the poor" boodoggles.
> 
> The black churches down here are extremely political and support dems so it goes both ways.
> 
> I'm catholic and most of the priests I've known, really all of them in the last twenty five years or so, were flaming liberal dems.


Whichever way they may go, but with their assistance we have our current inept administration and war in Iraq. Terrorism is a worldwide phenommenon, but we are involved particularly in Iraq, because pulling down Saddam was an long time dream of Bush. Now, suffering of Iraqui people surpasses what they suffered under Saddam's regime.


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## racer66 (Oct 6, 2003)

> Whichever way they may go, but with their assistance we have our current inept administration and war in Iraq. Terrorism is a worldwide phenommenon, but we are involved particularly in Iraq, because pulling down Saddam was an long time dream of Bush. Now, suffering of Iraqui people surpasses what they suffered under Saddam's regime.


Show us some proof that they are suffering more than under Saddam. Oh that's right, you can't.


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

> Show us some proof that they are suffering more than under Saddam. Oh that's right, you can't.


Under Saddam there was an element of stability. Some 30,000+ civilians have died so far in this war. That is far worse than under Saddam. I do not claim that he was a good guy, in fact my Muslim friend had an uncle taken by Saddam and never heard from again, but now there is chaos.


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## racer66 (Oct 6, 2003)

It would seem that MT and Seven are spewing forth lies again.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities ... cle=3889&R


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## R y a n (Apr 4, 2005)

racer66 said:


> It would seem that MT and Seven are spewing forth lies again.
> 
> http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities ... cle=3889&R


Nice counter to the argument Racer! That was a great article to read....

Ryan

.


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

> This includes political prisoners (including children) who poured from Saddam's dungeons at liberation, Shia activists, other dissenters, and military men suspected of disloyalty. Toppling Saddam also saved several thousand more at dire risk from his gradually rising violence against the Shia.


And all other sort of prisoners, who were released upon our arrival, committing more violence.

As to the UNICEF numbers, that is just ridiculous. If you wish to count those children who died of malnutrition we may as well count everyone who has died of a heart attack since our arrival as well. The economy has not improved since our arrival, rather it has gotten worse. As such you may as well still count those children dead.

The rest of the supposed dead count had we not intervened relied on "what ifs". No one can predict how many Kurds and Shi'ites would have been killed.

It is a nice thought, and it gives a noble purpose to the war, but it is wrong.


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## R y a n (Apr 4, 2005)

Militant_Tiger said:


> It is a nice thought, and it gives a noble purpose to the war, but it is wrong.


How is it wrong? You really believe that civilians would be better off under Sadaam? Huh? Do you realize how many people over there are thankful beyond words for us helping them get out from under Sadaam?


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

> How is it wrong? You really believe that civilians would be better off under Sadaam? Huh? Do you realize how many people over there are thankful beyone words for us helping them get out from under Sadaam?


Yes, I know one personally. That doesn't change the fact that though terrible, his reign produced a stable Iraq. Less people would have died had he been in power today. I dislike Saddam, and I did not want him in power, but the turmoil that has been caused by this war is horrible. The cure is worse than the malady.


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## R y a n (Apr 4, 2005)

Militant_Tiger said:


> > How is it wrong? You really believe that civilians would be better off under Sadaam? Huh? Do you realize how many people over there are thankful beyone words for us helping them get out from under Sadaam?
> 
> 
> Yes, I know one personally. That doesn't change the fact that though terrible, his reign produced a stable Iraq. Less people would have died had he been in power today. I dislike Saddam, and I did not want him in power, but the turmoil that has been caused by this war is horrible. The cure is worse than the malady.


MT C'mon you are really not delusional enough to believe that? You are telling me that the Iraqi's would be better off with a deranged lunatic who killed people through various methods of random terror in order to keep his stronghold over his country? The man summarily killed thousands at different points of his career! Evidence has just come out that Sadaam was actually more concerned about the Shiite's prior to our military action than he was of America! It is believed he was preparing his military to take action against them to further intimidate the masses. Sadaam's Baathist party was a huge minority in that country. Without his viscious reputation over mindless capteurs, Sadaam would have already been a dead man in some Coup attempt. In order to keep his power he had to make a regular show of strength. You really think that had we not gone in there, that some other atrocity would not have happened? You realize that the atrocity against the Kurds was randomly discovered. He did those kinds of crimes all the time. Who's to say that he wasn't going to do more crimes that would have never been uncovered had we not gone in.

I'm sorry but your "friend" over there only provides you 1 perception or point of view. Who knows how manipluated their mind was to his propoganda....


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

My friend is a Shi'ite, and is for the war. He and I disagree.

You are looking at this in a very simplistic way. You view it as "He was bad, so we took him down, that is good for the people", and it certainly would be if it was just that simple. It's not. I challenge you to show me some sort of evidence that over the past three years 30,000 or more people would have been killed by Saddam. He was bad, and he is gone, that is good for the people, but the area is unstable, with many waring factions. Whether we like it or not, a heavy handed dictator was the only thing keeping the area at rest.


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## racer66 (Oct 6, 2003)

More


> Inaccuracies


 from MT. Here's the truth.


> Editlainsman


Iraqi economy to grow 10 percent in 2006, official predicts February 11, 2006 - The Iraqi economy is expected to grow 10 percent this year as reconstruction efforts begin to show results and tens of thousands of new businesses begin operating, according to senior U.S. State Department official Daniel Speckhard. 
Speckhard-who serves as the State Department's director of strategic governance and economic effects in addition to serving as director of the Iraq reconstruction management office-said the Iraqi economy is poised for a 10 percent growth surge after expanding at roughly three percent in 2005.
Briefing reporters via telephone from Baghdad on Feb. 9, Speckhard said that 30,000 businesses were formally registered in Iraq last year, excluding informal business activity.
Aiming to create more jobs, reconstruction authorities have launched micro-enterprise and loan programs-and short-term job projects such as road construction, Speckhard said.
Speckhard said the most pressing needs are providing

Let's look at the numbers of death's without the UNICEF numbers, still leads to more lies from MT. He was the President for 27 years, divide it out and see what you come up with.

Its rate of killing was far higher when the regime targeted entire communities. Shia Muslims, ethnic Kurds, and smaller ethnic and religious minorities were constantly subject to violence from the regime (as well as many other forms of repression). In his first dozen years in power, Saddam assaulted at least one of these groups with truly massive violence on average every three years. After Iran's Shia revolution, Saddam became concerned that Iraq's own Shias might try to follow suit. In 1980, Iraq attacked Iran, at which point Saddam wanted also to ensure that Iraqi Shias would not assist their Shia brethren. To these ends, the regime murdered thousands--quite possibly 50,000, according to Human Rights Watch--including Shia clerics.

The Iran-Iraq war put large strains on Iraq's economy, military, and regime. Saddam dealt with the resulting problems in characteristic fashion. Just as with Stalin during World War II, large amounts of blood were shed not only on the military front, but also behind it. Shias were not the only targets. In a single episode in the mid-1980s, the regime rounded up and killed around 10,000 Kurds. Even before the war ended, the regime launched a much more ambitious program to wipe out entire Kurdish communities. It was in this military campaign--named Operation Anfal--that the regime used chemical weapons against several Kurdish towns, killing thousands. Human Rights Watch estimated that Anfal killed "more than 100,000" Kurds, and that Kurdish victims of the regime's campaigns between 1983 and 1993 reached "well into six figures."

Kurdish groups estimate Anfal's victims were even higher, up to 180,000. Whatever the exact number, Human Rights Watch concluded that "the Iraqi regime committed the crime of genocide." Anfal's intense phase lasted three months in the spring of 1988. If we estimate its victims at 100,000, the regime was killing Kurds alone at a rate of around 30,000 each month, or a thousand a day.

The collapse of most of Saddam's army in the first Gulf War inspired an uprising or intifada within the military and among the Kurds and Shia. The regime responded with the largest killing spree in its history.

Unfortunately, little information is available about the violence directed against Shias, who are believed to have suffered the worst of this backlash. Initial reports conservatively estimated at least 50,000 Shia victims. More horrifying--but believable--reports have come from Iraqi state security officials who fled Saddam's fickle wrath after 1991. One defecting officer reported that he supervised the killing and burial of approximately 4,000 Shias at one site in one morning alone--this, in an operation that lasted weeks. The U.S. report "Life Under Saddam Hussein" states that "Iraqi officials themselves have privately acknowledged that the regime slaughtered as many as 200,000 Shia" or even more in 1991.

The number of Kurds who died in 1991--killed by Saddam's forces or fleeing them--is estimated at 50,000 to 80,000. This range would have been much higher, except that the Gulf War Allies intervened in Iraq's north in response to the massive flow of desperate Kurdish refugees escaping the regime's onslaught. While it was allowed to proceed, the regime killed Kurds at a rate of tens of thousands a month. The regime also killed an unknown number of people living in Iraq's southern marshes in military campaigns stretching into 1992.

This means that for a time in the early spring of 1991, Saddam's regime was killing Shias and Kurds combined at a rate of tens of thousands per week, and would have gone on doing so in the north for much longer had the Americans, British, and French not created a "safe haven" for Kurds inside northern Iraq, which Saddam's forces were basically barred from entering.

In the 1990s, Saddam's regime continued to commit individual political murder. Victims included people suspected of anti-Saddam activity, others who were friends and relatives of the suspected subversives, as well as people caught up in the mafia-like violence of Uday Hussein and other regime figures. Throughout these years, Amnesty International catalogued credible reports of hundreds of killings every year, and quite possibly thousands in several years.

From 1997 to 1999, the regime "cleansed" its prisons, executing up to 2,500 people. Around the same time, the regime began a new campaign against selected Shia. Prominent Shia clerics were assassinated, prompting public demonstrations, which were savagely suppressed with an unknown number of victims. And a new military offensive was launched against groups in the southern marshes in 1998. In the decade leading up to the Coalition invasion, political murder also extended deeper into the regime's ranks than ever before. Thousands in the military died in periodic purges, and killing extended even into Sunni tribes and Saddam's own family.

Four months before Saddam's fall, Human Rights Watch estimated that up to 290,000 people had "disappeared" since the late 1970s and were presumed dead. The Coalition Provisional Authority's human rights office estimates that 300,000 bodies are contained in the numerous mass graves. "And that's the lower end of the estimates," said one CPA spokesperson. In fact, the accumulated credible reports make the likely number at least 400,000 to 450,000. So, by a conservative estimate, the regime was killing civilians at an average rate of at least 16,000 a year between 1979 and March 2003.

Keep up the good work MT.


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

Racer you rarely bother to cite sources, and when you do it is trash and obviously biased sources like the Weekly Standard. As we have seen in the past, including your last source, these often rely on flawed logic.

As to the Iraqi economy, we are talking about the past three years, not projected profits. Even if that was so, it is 10% above the previous year, which saw a drop in profits.

Try as you may, you're just blowing hot air.

Try this on for size. 
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11391254/


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## racer66 (Oct 6, 2003)

Aaah yes, flawed logic because it blows yours out of the water.



> said the Iraqi economy is poised for a 10 percent growth surge after expanding at roughly three percent in 2005.


Yep the economy isn't getting any better, I think you need a plug for your rubber dingy, cuz its sinkin.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Racer, what you are talking about is why I believe Sadam had WMD (gas). If memory serves me he killed somewhere around 50,000 kurds in one gas attack. This was before the first gulf war.
How did we get here from church's and tax exemptions? Oh, ya, sevendogs. This is good, but off topic, lets get back to the tax exemptions.

Churches and religion are supposed to give direction to your spiritual life. Things in politics that counter religious beliefs will be discussed within the church. They don't need to endorse a specific candidate, but they should discuss moral issues ie abortion.


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