Texas strips Unitarian church tax exemption

The second and sixth US presidents, John Adams and John Quncy Adams, belonged to the Unitarian church.
But that’s not enough for the State of Texas. Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn ruled this week to take away the tax exempt status of the Unitarian church, because the church “does not have one system of belief.” See this Knight Ridder story for more detail.
Why stop with the Unitarians? Hindus and Buddhists surely don’t meet the standard either. In fact, Jewish theology has far to much room for variance in important areas such as the precise nature of the afterlife. Time to tax synagogues and temples.
The failed attempt to finance schools with “sin taxes” on cigarettes, strip clubs, and lottery machines was clearly a step in the wrong direction.
Clearly, we need to finance Texas education with taxes on religious organizations with insufficiently rigorous theology. Not to mention atheists, who should register to pay extra taxes.
Or maybe reread the First Amendment to the Constitution.

3 thoughts on “Texas strips Unitarian church tax exemption”

  1. applying the higher-power test

    I mentioned the Texas state comptroller’s office’s decision to deny Unitarian-Universalist congregation church tax status at the recent Austin Blogger Meetup and Adina blogged it as well. Well, it seems that Carole Keeton Rylander Strayhorn has, um, se…

  2. ‘Ancira says a criterion used in determining whether a group qualifies as a church is “simply a belief in God or gods, or a higher power.”‘
    Does it count if I acknowledge that Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn is herself a Higher Power?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *