[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]magick wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
You kidding me? Time magazine of all things has already run an article calling for the revocation of churches tax exemption status!
Unreal. And its just getting started.[/quote]
Why should churches have tax exempt status?[/quote]
Totally immaterial. The only thing relevant to the discussion in this thread is this: why is their tax-exempt status apparently being revisited due, in part, to their opposition to gay marriage?
This is a punitive measure, nothing more, nothing less. There are all sorts of groups out there with tax-exempt status, but I can guarantee you that the only ones whose status is now being called into question are those with opposition to gay marriage.
I don’t like this one bit, and this is where this country is headed. You see it all the time.
Black civil rights rhetoric has somehow morphed into attacks on the white male under the code word “white privilege”.
Feminist rhetoric has become more about getting even than gaining equality. You know what feminism looks like now? It’s a construction company getting shut down for 3 days at the University of Santa Cruz because one of the male workers spent more than 3 seconds looking at a woman walking nude across campus. (I’m not kidding you. That shit happens all the time and I have friends who are building inspectors for UCSC and have to deal with that shit. They literally have a 3-second rule on campus; any and all non-students/faculty can be arrested or removed from campus for looking at ANY female for more than 3 straight seconds unless you are talking to them.)
We see this everywhere. There is a complete and utter lack of dialogue in this country about these sorts of issues. Bill Maher or Sean Hannity putting the token conservative/liberal punching bag they call a guest on their shows is not an open discourse. Being told, repeatedly, that you are a homophobic bigot because you disagree with a Supreme Court Justice’s rationale is not an open dialogue.
Anyone who is dumb enough to actually engage anyone on Facebook already knows this, though. But if you don’t know this, go on Facebook and tell your “friends” that you think Justice Kennedy arrived at his decision using a poor legal rationale and that the decision has further set the country back. In fact, just get right down to brass tacks and tell your Facebook “friends” that you think the Obergefell decision is a dark day for the freedoms of Americans. Watch that shitshow unfold and try to call it an open dialogue.
I cannot tell you how many people have already tried shooting me down for being a homophobe simply because I disagreed with Kennedy’s rationale. And these are people who KNOW that I know WAY more about the Constitution than they do, people who know my JOB is teach constitutional history to high schoolers. And they still have the nerve to shout me down instead of treat me like the resource that I am to them. Nietzsche was wrong: it’s not God who is dead, it is open dialogue.[/quote]
Thank fuck-all that SOMEBODY is doing the job to teach high schoolers Constitutional history. Good job DB. And excellent post on exactly what is happening here. And has been happening for a number of years already.
