Comment of the Week Taxes Christianity and Islam

We've seen the phenomenon over and over again: Christians set up some scheme to benefit themselves and their religion, but as soon as another group (usually pagans or atheists) take advantage of it, those same Christians suddenly change their mind and shut it down. An appreciation for church/state separation only appears when non-Christians benefit from the privileges which those Christians set up for themselves.

So I wonder... might tax exemptions some day follow a similar path?

OZ writes:

Tax exemptions for churches are dubious.

I think we are going to see much more attention given to this topic in the near future because of the rise of Islam in the West. This is a phenomena that is causing much disquiet in Europe today, and no doubt will become a bigger issue in the USA soon.

In order to avoid charges of discrimination governments are obliged to extend tax free benefits to Islamic mosques and assist Islamic educational institutions, in the same way that the Christian ones are being funded today. Taxpayers are helping to fund the development of a powder keg.

Government assistance to Christian churches must stop so that the Islamic ones can be denied this also, and as much as possible the education available should be secular. This is the best way to defuse an explosive situation.

[original post]

Now it has to be recognized that Muslim groups and mosques already benefit from all the same laws and exemptions as Christians -- there wouldn't be any actual change here. At the same time, though, it has to be recognized we already have examples of Christians protesting mosques benefiting from neutral rules that they have always benefited from. I'm talking about the many protests made by Christians against mosques simply being allowed to be built.

If Christians can protest and oppose mosques simply being built, I don't think it's much of a stretch to imagine the same Christians protesting mosques getting tax exemptions and benefiting from a variety of special government privileges which are extended to all religious groups but which Christians seem to imagine are designed especially for them.

Thus there may be some advantage to be had in framing anti-tax-exemption arguments around non-Christian institutions -- just replace "church" with "mosque". There's a real danger of fueling anti-Muslim bigotry and we don't want to do that. However, if it takes substituting "mosque" for "church" in neutral, fair argument for a Christian to recognize that the argument is valid, then it's more than reasonable to do so. It's not even necessarily hypocrisy on their part to only recognize the validity of an argument when it uses slightly different terms. Sometimes people just don't see past ingrained assumptions very easily.

Put another way, some Christians may not accept that it's wrong for all taxpayers to subsidize churches by making churches tax exempt, but the may accept that it's wrong for all taxpayers to subside mosques by making mosques tax exempt. They will certainly be reluctant to extend the conclusions of such an argument to churches, but legally they won't be able to prevent it.