Mormons, no strangers to weird marriages, should lose their tax-exempt status for their help defeating gay marriage
Over $75 million was spent in California on Proposition 8, the quest to outlaw gay marriage. The Latter Day Saints are said to be responsible for a good several million of that. Gay people really bug the Mormons.
The search-engine-friendily named blog “Revoke LDS Church 501(c)(3) Status” would like to point out that in order to deserve tax exempt status, a religious organization must ensure
no substantial part of (its) activities …is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation…
This former Mormon’s reasons for providing a host of handy suggestions and links for how to let the IRS know tax-free time must end for the LDS include this most reasonable reflection:
I created this blog because I believe that the members of the Church are some of the most loving people I have ever known in my life, and that they are not well served by the recent decision of Church leaders to exhort members to donate of their “time and means” (i.e. money) to Proposition 8. Reading a letter with this exhortation in every church in California crossed a line — not only because of its political nature, but also because Joseph Smith, the Church’s founder, believed “in being subject to … magistrates” and in “obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” Moreover, the Church struggled to practice marriage as it chose, free from government interference, for many of its early years. Has it forgotten its history?
The Stop All Monsters blog has even more keen ideas for how to exercise your views on the separation of church and state, including a boycott on a number of Mormon-owned Mariott hotels in California.
UPDATE: Boycotts continue to roll in. The Sundance Film Festival is next on the list.
[...] still boycott talk in the mainstream media, anger is spreading and the call to remove the tax-exempt status enjoyed by the LDS church is going [...]
Posted by Topic Agnostic » Blog Archive » Mormon Prop 8 backlash continues; lovers of liberty hopping mad on November 11th, 2008 2:35 pm