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Subject: RTP-area local music and culture

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  • From: paok <bluefreaky AT earthlink.net>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: Regional bashing
  • Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:41:54 -0500 (GMT-05:00)

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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