Shutting down churches
Ned Ferguson, who I thought was MIA, notes that the .gov can shut down churches using eminent domain:
Churches are tax exempt, hence virtually any “use” except a church generates greater tax revenue for the government and therefore makes the property subject to seizure. See how easy that is?
He even has a sample.
June 28th, 2006 at 10:33 am
I guess the question isn’t really whether the government can shut down churches to increase its tax base, so much as why on earth they’d want to use the Rube Goldberg of eminent domain to accomplish indirectly what could be achieved directly simply by removing the tax exemption for churches. Sure, the latter would provoke some public outcry, but not nearly as much as would shutting down churches altogether.
June 28th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Hmm, removing the tax exemption for churches? Now there’s an idea I can get behind! 🙂
June 28th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Hell yea. Otherwise you have to give the exact same exemption to everyone that dreams up a religion, or whatever, to take the tax break.
How do you fairly discriminate between, say the Shakers (safe because they are almost all dead by now) , and the Tie-Dye Temple of LSD, or Our Lady of Streetwalkers, Most Holy House of Prostitution?
Heh, I see it now…
The Unified Dogma Universal Church of Atheists
Subtitled: Because we want tax breaks too!