Taxes, Religion, Education, And Agnostics

["Ted Moffett" <ted_moffett@hotmail.com>]

Sharon, Doug W., Doug J. et. al.

Christ Church must get a tax break which assists them in promoting their 
religion and somewhat compensates them, it seems to me, for the taxes paid 
by Christ Church members that will go to the government schools.  So doesn't 
this "tax exempt religious status" weaken their claims of being wronged by 
the system via taxation for the government schools who promote a worldview 
they find offensive?  The government and society, all it's taxpaying 
members, are helping to encourage their worldview on religion by granting 
Christ Church tax exempt status.  So how wronged is Christ Church and it's 
members by the legal obligations of it's members to also support public 
schools?

The public schools have a legal obligation to educate all children, poor or 
not, with good parents or not, disabled or healthy.  Logos has no legal 
obligation to educate any child that shows up on it's doorstep.  We do not 
have charity schools that can adequately fulfill these needs.  And is it not 
in society's interest to provide a good education for all children?  The low 
wage workers with children in America cannot afford private schools, and 
many are not well educated enough themselves to home school, despite the 
wonders of our Capitalist Utopia.  So the notion that we should allow 
education to be provided solely by various private or charity schools will 
ultimately mean some children would go uneducated.

Therefore from the previous assumptions it follows we need tax supported 
schools, or government schools, as some prefer to call them, and all 
taxpaying members of society in fairness should pay a tax for said schools.  
Even if education was contracted out with tax money to private sector 
schools, there would still be battles over what religion or not should be 
taught in these schools, with some wanting to opt out of their education 
taxes if their religious views were violated.

I think it would be reasonable that if those who benefit from religious 
institutions want to opt out of taxes that pay for the public schools on 
religious grounds, the the tax exempt religious status of said associated 
religious institutions should be voided.

The tax exempt status of religious institutions just transfers various tax 
burdens onto other groups in society.  If I am an agnostic or atheist, why 
should I be taxed more to allow religious institutions a tax exempt status 
(because this tax exempt status shifts the taxes not collected from 
religious institutions to others), to promote a worldview I find offensive?

Sharon Sullivan's stories about Lesotho portend what could happen here if we 
let all educational institutions be run by churches or charities or private 
companies.  Many children would just go uneducated.  In fact, due in part to 
the lack of education funding in some school districts in the USA right now, 
this is happening, at least from the point of view of providing a reasonable 
education.  Anyone who doubts this claim please read "Savage Inequalities" 
by Jonathan Kozol.  Far from the education system in the USA everywhere 
being an over funded fat bureaucracy, some school districts in the USA are 
on poverty flats!

Ted


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