RTP-area local music and culture

[paok <bluefreaky AT earthlink.net>]

I was researching a little federal nonprofit (501c3) status question on the 
web yesterday, and in doing so, I came across a wealth of sites whose basic 
gist seemed to be that 501c3 status for a church was "ungodly" b/c the 
government (ie, irs) could then interfere with the operations of the church.  
 Anecdotal evidence that people do indeed find the freedom to worship as they 
will to be a very important right.

But the First Amendment itself separates these two ideas--no state sanctioned 
religion & freedom to worship as you will into two different clauses (and the 
Supreme Court has separate analyses for each as well).  While it is arguable 
that the state sanctioning a particular religion would eventually lead to a 
quelling of other religions' right to exist/flourish, I don't think that 
right-wing Christians see this larger connection.  It would therefore not 
surprise me if the same people decrying 501c3 status for a church as 
"ungodly" also support faith-based initiatives...

Never underestimate people's ability to read selectively--to only see that 
which they want to see, that which supports their perceived self-interests.

phaedra





> 
It seems to me that the intelligent way to sell seperation of church and 
state is to not stress so much the freedom of the state from religion, 
but the freedom of religion from the state.  Do folks really want the 
gummint telling them how to worship?  It seems like even the not so 
brilliant would be able to see that even amongst christianity there's no 
real consensus on how it ought to be practiced and what exactly jesus 
thinks it is we all should do.  It always seemed obvious to me growing 
up that seperation of church and state was primarily to protect 
religion.  Large chunks of New England were founded by followers of 
weird ass sects of Christianity that were persecuted in England where 
the state religion was a different weird ass sect of Christianity.  The 
beauty of the secular state is it allows us all to live and work 
together regardless of what we call God.  That doesn't seem like too 
sophisticated a concept to me.  Normal people ought to be able to grok that.

rossi


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