thoughtsignals

Yesterday my copy of Justin Catanoso’s “My Cousin the Saint: A Search for Faith, Family and Miracles” arrived from Amazon. Normally, this is not the kind of book I would read. I happily left the Catholic Church a long time ago. But Justin is a former editor of mine, and I’ve read many of his previous pieces on his cousin, and more importantly heard stories first hand about the Saint and about how he wrote the book. I’ve only had time to read the very beginning, a miracle story that opens the book, but I found myself touched by the story and the writing.

Here’s something different. Hustler publisher Larry Flynt has published a rememberance of Jerry Falwell in the L.A. Times:

It was the first time since the infamous 1988 trial that the reverend and I had been in the same room together, and the thought of even breathing the same air with him made me sick. I disagreed with Falwell (who died last week) on absolutely everything he preached, and he looked at me as symbolic of all the social ills that a society can possibly have. But I’d do anything to sell the book and the film, and Falwell would do anything to preach, so King’s audience of 8 million viewers was all the incentive either of us needed to bring us together.

Link.

That’s what Christopher Hitchens says in an interview with New York magazine:

I know something which is known to few but is not a secret. Karl Rove is not a believer, and he doesn’t shout it from the rooftops, but when asked, he answers quite honestly. I think the way he puts it is, “I’m not fortunate enough to be a person of faith.”

Assuming it’s true … I never would have guessed that.

Link.

Dinesh D’Souza asks the somewhat silly question “where is atheism when bad things happen?” A Virginia Tech atheist professor replies:

You can find us next week in the bloodied classrooms of a violated campus, trying to piece our thoughts and lives and studies back together.

With or without a belief in a god, with or without your asinine bigotry, we will make progress, we will breathe life back into our university, I will succeed in explaining this or that point, slowly, eventually, in a ham-handed way, at risk of tears half-way through, my students will come to feel comfortable again in a classroom with no windows or escape route, and hell yes we will prevail.

You see Mr D’Souza, I am an atheist professor at Virginia Tech and a man of great faith. Not faith in your god. Faith in my people.

Link.

Part 5 of the New York Times series on how faith-based organizations have carved out exemptions for themselves from conventional government regulation and taxation:

It looks like a business and, in many ways, acts like one. But it is beyond the reach of most of the rules and government oversight that apply to businesses — because it is a church mission.

This is the “medical bill sharing ministry” known as Christian Care Ministry, based in Melbourne, Fla., the largest of a handful of similar ministries around the country.

Link.

My previous posts on this series are here, here, here and here.

The issue here is not whether or not religious organizations should have constitutional protection against government interference. The issue is when are those protections taken so far that they end up giving the religious organizations an economic advantage over organizations — when do protections from government interference morph into government subsidies. At that point, the government is aiding the establishment of a religion. And that’s unconstitutional.

Part 4 of the New York Times’ series on special exemptions for faith-based organizations:

Religion-Based Tax Breaks: Housing to Paychecks to Books

Also today, Diana Henriques, the reporter who has written this series for the Times, writes about how faith-based orgs are seeking more exemptions, still, from various government regulations and taxes. Link.

BTW, you can read Henriques’ bio here. Turns out she’s currently a senior warden at an Episcopal church in New Jersey.

My previous posts on this here, here and here.

Day 3 of the NYT’s series on the expansion of exemptions from government regulation and taxation for faith-based organizations.

Members of the St. Joseph County Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals, all but one of them lifelong Catholics, see it differently. To them, a charitable ministry does not consist of providing lovely retirement living to affluent people. The current residents of Holy Cross Village have an average net worth of $1 million. Those with deposits on the units under construction are even better off, averaging $1.6 million.

If Holy Cross Village is not taxed, members of the assessment board point out, a heavier burden will fall on the working families in the county that are struggling to pay the taxes on their small homes in careworn communities like the west side of South Bend.

Link.

The New York Times has the second in its series of articles on how religious organizations, including, potentially, hospitals and universities, are exempt from employment laws that govern secular groups. That means, basically, they can stop unionization drives, fire employees whose health care bills may prove expensive or force out people who campaign against discrimination.

But judges also have applied the exception to dismiss cases filed by
the press secretary at a Roman Catholic church, a writer for The
Christian Science Monitor, administrators at religious colleges, the
disgruntled beneficiaries of a Lutheran pension fund, the overseer of
the kosher kitchen at a Jewish nursing home and a co-founder of Focus
on the Family, run by the conservative religious leader James C.
Dobson. Court files show that some of these people were surprised to
learn that their work had been considered a “core expression of
religious belief” by their employer.

Link.

(See my post from yesterday on this subject here.)

The New York Times has a lengthy piece about the growing body of regulatory exemptions and tax breaks that religious organizations have won across the country. In many cases, these special provisions give churches a competitive advantage over secular nonprofits in providing services such as child care.

In recent years, many politicians and commentators have cited what they consider a nationwide “war on religion” that exposes religious organizations to hostility and discrimination. But such organizations — from mainline Presbyterian and Methodist churches to mosques to synagogues to Hindu temples — enjoy an abundance of exemptions from regulations and taxes. And the number is multiplying rapidly.

Some of the exceptions have existed for much of the nation’s history, originally devised for Christian churches but expanded to other faiths as the nation has become more religiously diverse. But many have been granted in just the last 15 years — sometimes added to legislation, anonymously and with little attention, much as are the widely criticized “earmarks” benefiting other special interests.

An analysis by The New York Times of laws passed since 1989 shows that more than 200 special arrangements, protections or exemptions for religious groups or their adherents were tucked into Congressional legislation, covering topics ranging from pensions to immigration to land use. New breaks have also been provided by a host of pivotal court decisions at the state and federal level, and by numerous rule changes in almost every department and agency of the executive branch.

The special breaks amount to “a sort of religious affirmative action program,” said John Witte Jr., director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at the Emory University law school.

Link.

On a somewhat related note, here’s how one atheist respond’s to the question “Why do atheists care about religion?” in a video on YouTube: Link.