Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1875

Missouri County Officials Who Finally Covered Up a Jesus Fish Symbol on a War Memorial Now Reconsidering Decision

Last week, we learned that a war memorial outside the Boone County courthouse in Missouri had finally covered up the Jesus Fish symbol that had been there for 20 years:

The literal cover-up came in response to a letter Americans United For Separation of Church and State sent county officials back in May. Officials feared a losing lawsuit and decided it wasn’t a battle worth fighting.

Now, they may be changing their minds.

A dozen people spoke against the decision to cover the religious symbol at Thursday’s commission meeting. No one spoke in support of covering the ichthus. Presiding Commissioner Dan Atwill said the commission would try to schedule a meeting within two weeks to reconsider the action. Southern District Commissioner Karen Miller said she preferred to wait until lawsuits against other governmental entities are decided before considering the matter.

…

Most of the speakers criticized the decision to cover the ichthus as disrespectful to the veterans for whom the memorial was erected in 1992 and their families.

There’s the crux of the issue right there. The people in Boone County just don’t give a damn about any veterans who aren’t Christian. Or they’re wrongly assuming every veteran believes in the same God as them. Whether it’s selfishness or ignorance, they have no business asking the government to promote Christianity on a monument. They are more than welcome to honor Christian veterans in their homes and churches.

(Image via Waymarking. Thanks to Brian for the link)

The Little Pebble Has Been Paroled, Free To Resume His Leadership of Australia’s Craziest Cult

William Kamm, a.k.a. the Little Pebble, a name given to him by the Virgin Mary, will be back on the street within a week. The German-born Australian cult leader just got paroled after spending nine years in prison for multiple sexual assaults on two underage girls, crimes that flowed from his belief that he’s been chosen by God to become the next Pope, but without the required celibacy.

Kamm is the head of the Order of St. Charbel, a cult group that claims to fall under the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. The Vatican begs to differ.

Kamm claims the Latin Rite rules of obligatory celibacy do not apply to him, not even if finally declared “pope” sometime in the future; nor does it apply to the priests of his order.

On 14 October 2005, Kamm was sentenced to five years in prison with a non-parole period of three-and-a-half years for a string of sexual attacks including aggravated sexual assault on a 15-year-old girl. He claimed that she was one of his 84 mystical wives.

The assaults occurred when the girl was living within Kamm’s Order of St. Charbel, a community … near Nowra, New South Wales. Kamm claimed to have received advice from the Blessed Virgin Mary that the girl should be chosen as one of 12 queens and 72 princesses who would all become his wives, with whom he would spawn a new human race after the world was cleansed and burnt by a ball of fire. …

Kamm was also found guilty in May 2007 of aggravated sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault in relation to another 15-year-old girl. In August 2007, after losing an appeal on his original sentence, Kamm was re-sentenced to a total of 15 years imprisonment.

ABC Australia has an article about Kamm’s pending release in which Ros Hodgkins, who heads the Cult Information and Family Support Service in New South Wales, sounds a bit worried about the cultist’s followers — present and future:

She says their mindset prevents them from thinking any negative thoughts about their group because it’s reinforced as a sin.

Having their leader convicted and sentenced like Kamm can also be turned into a positive for the group, who can believe he is being persecuted in the same way Jesus Christ was.

Echoes of American Christian conservatives, you might say. But Kamm’s beliefs are more bizarre by a mile.

One of Kamm’s claims is that Pope John Paul II will rise from the dead and reappear on the surface of the world again to fight evil along with Benedict XVI and possibly to appoint Kamm.

Any day now.

It’s tempting to dismiss William Kamm as a pitiable buffoon, but we can’t forget that his delusions caused him to rape two teenage girls.

Even darker than those crimes is the Little Pebble’s reported connection to the almost unfathomable Jonestown-like cult massacre that occurred in Kanungu, Uganda in early 2000. Close to 800 people perished in an orgy of violence. I wrote about it here.

The man who ran the Ugandan cult, Joseph Kibweteere, now a fugitive, has a son who told the Guardian that his father had corresponded with Kamm, and that the two had even met in Kampala.

“I remember [my parents] going, and when my father came back he said that Little Pebble had filled him with new hope.”

Said a man from Kanungu as he watched some of the cult members’ corpses being exhumed,

“They were religious people. We would never have expected them to kill.“

Let’s hope no one will have to say the same thing about Kamm and his followers.

A Christian Explains the Qualities Our Next President Must Possess (Spoiler: Hillary Clinton Fails on All Counts)

Since you were wondering, conservative Christian mouthpiece Bryan Fischer has a list of 6 qualities the next U.S. President must possess.

Implied throughout the list: a Y chromosome.

But let’s see how much worse this gets…

1. He must be a patriot.

…

We have seen over the last six years what a president looks like who sees himself as a citizen of the world first, and who puts America’s needs and interests second to whatever he perceives to be our responsibility to be good global citizens. No, we need a president of unquestioned loyalty to this country and to its people, whose primary concern is the safety and well-being of the citizens of this land.

Yes, we need a President who loves America… and gives a big middle finger to the rest of the world. Because the country, just like Fischer, must live in a bubble.

2. He must believe in a strong national defense.

Well, that doesn’t sound so bad…

He must be a commander-in-chief who puts military readiness ahead of any trendy causes, such as homosexual privilege or gender equality, which erode military capability.

Ah… there’s the Fischer we were expecting. Any President who thinks women and gay men can defend our country is automatically disqualified.

3. He must be a faithful husband.

Seems somewhat irrelevant, but I suppose that goes toward overall trustworthiness. On that count, though, shouldn’t Fischer love Obama? Yet, the entire point proceeds without a single mention of the current President or his family.

4. He must be a man of unimpeachable integrity.

Good luck finding that anywhere in Washington…

5. He must be a man of humility.

We cannot afford to have another example of what Democrat strategist Pat Caddell calls “a raging narcissist” in the Oval Office. We need a president who is not flushed with arrogance and hubris and conceit but a man who is humbled by the awesome responsibility of his office and has an awareness of his own limitations.

You know, I’m pretty sure anyone who thinks s/he’s capable of being one of the most powerful people in the world, by definition, isn’t the most humble person out there. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, for what it’s worth, but every President I can think of has remarked on how humbled he’s felt by the power of the position.

6. He must be a student of Scripture and the Constitution.

…

We need a president who is an unapologetic man of Christian faith who reveres the word of God, immerses himself in it and is guided by it…

We need someone who both respects the Constitution and ignores the Constitution. (Also, fuck you, Jews.)

…

The funniest thing about the list is that one could make the argument that, by Fischer’s own criteria, Obama is the perfect President. Good luck getting him to admit that, though.

(Image via Shutterstock)

Catholic Church Officials Allegedly Destroyed Criminal Evidence: Minnesota Priest’s Child Porn Tapes

Dumb and Dummer.

When two employees at St. Mary’s church in downtown St. Paul found what they believed was child pornography in the Rev. Donald J. Dummer’s living quarters in 1997, they brought the material to an archdiocese official.

Over the next five years, the circle of church leaders made aware of the material grew. It included then-Vicar General Kevin McDonough, then-Archbishop Harry Flynn, and the Rev. Joseph Hitpas, Dummer’s superior in the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the order to which he belonged.

It even reached the apostolic nuncio in Washington, D.C., Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States.

Of course, all the senior padres investigated the heck out of the shocking tapes (try not to dwell on that image).

Or maybe they didn’t.

The potentially criminal material was never turned over to law enforcement. Instead, Hitpas told Flynn in 2002, “I will dispose of the tapes.”

It took until last year for someone in the Church to finally do something, and even that occurred only when victim groups, attorneys, and law enforcement began making the Twin Cities’ Catholic clergy rather hot under the collar.

Bishop Andrew Cozzens of the archdiocese said in a written statement Thursday that Dummer’s file was turned over to police investigators in November 2013.

After sixteen years. That’s normal, right?

“Dummer is accused of possessing child pornography while he was living within the archdiocese,” Cozzens wrote. “Today, we would handle such allegations differently.”

Church officials and Anderson identified Dummer last month as being among priests in the Twin Cities archdiocese with substantiated claims of child sexual abuse.

This ought to surprise no one either:

After the accusation, Dummer continued working in the archdiocese until 2006 as a chaplain at Regions Hospital, where he had contact with adults and children, Finnegan said. He continues to be a priest in Tewksbury, Mass.

Just yesterday, Pope Francis announced that he’d have showers for the homeless installed under the white colonnade of St. Peter’s Square. I’d suggest that some of his colleagues could maybe scrub themselves vigorously in those stalls too, to try to get rid of the pervasive stink of their Catholic hypocrisy.

(Image via Shutterstock)

After Satanists Plan to Give Away Coloring Books, School Board Considers Banning Religious Distributions Altogether

In January of 2013, World Changers of Florida, Inc. held Bible distributions at a number of public high schools in Orange County, Florida. No student would be forced to take one, but there would be a table set up where interested students could take a copy if they wanted:

This alone could have been illegal, but the Orange County School Board agreed that non-Christian groups could also have a distribution if they wanted.

When the Central Florida Freethought Community (CFFC) called their bluff and planned their own giveaways, they were heavily censored. Many of their books, they were told, could not be given away, including titles such as Sam Harris‘ Letter to a Christian Nation and Ibn Warraq‘s Why I am Not a Muslim.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation didn’t buy their explanations for why the books were censored and filed a federal lawsuit against the district in June of 2013. Before the lawsuit was ruled upon, the district agreed to let the atheists give away whatever books they wanted.

But, for whatever reason, the atheists never bothered to submit a formal request to do a distribution. My assumption here is that, because the giveaway was now open to everyone, they had no need to push this any further. (***Edit***: CFFC’s David Williamson tells me they didn’t do the giveaway because the lawsuit was still ongoing, and they were not notified that the board decided not to censor their materials until after it was too late to participate.)

Then the fun began.

The Satanic Temple announced earlier this year that they would file a formal request to do a giveaway of materials about Satanism, which eventually morphed into a single fantastic coloring book:

Damn, I love the Constitution.

After all of this, the Orange County School Board is finally — finally! — considering not allowing outside groups to do book distributions:

Worried about facing national ridicule if a Satanic group is allowed to give out coloring books to children, the Orange County School Board moved Thursday toward preventing any outside group from distributing religious materials on campus.

…

The board discussed the issue during a workshop Thursday. The earliest it could vote to change the policy would be late January or early February, officials said.

“This really has, frankly, gotten out of hand,” said chairman Bill Sublette. “I think we’ve seen a group or groups take advantage of the open forum we’ve had.”

That last statement is just bananas. It didn’t get out of hand at all; Sublette is mad because a non-Christian group took them up on their offer and that was never supposed to happen.

People like him aren’t used to minority groups fighting back — and now that one of them has, he thinks the best option is to shut the whole thing down.

Another board member was much more blunt about the reasons for the potential change:

Board member Christine Moore also seemed to struggle with the effect of a policy change on Christian groups. “Everyone’s upset about the Satanists and the atheists coming,” she said.

Well, that’s just too damn bad. Should’ve thought of that before you allowed the Christians to give away Bibles.

I spoke with David Williamson of the CFFC and he told me (via email) what he thought about all of this:

“Our members, who are also concerned parents of students in Orange County Public Schools, are pleased the school board has finally realized they have a gaping hole in their policy. We expect they will be able to reach a solution that keeps them out of court and focusing on teaching students instead of propping up religious propaganda. It is quite hilarious that Satan might just be the one to shut down the forum for the Christians. I’m not sure that helps as much in the long run in regards to the true believers.”

Williamson also coined a perfectly appropriate phrase for all this: Lucien’s Law. It’s like the nuclear option of church/state separation cases. When nothing else works, count on Satanists to settle the matter!

Speaking of which, I asked Lucien Graves what he preferred: Being able to distributing his books or not being able to because there was a blanket ban on such giveaways:

Either outcome — whether we are allowed to distribute our materials or all religious materials are banned — is preferable to the worst-case scenario: an open forum in which Evangelicals enjoy the sole privilege of propagandizing and proselytizing.

We were clear from the beginning that The Satanic Temple does not believe that religious proselytizing is appropriate in schools. We viewed our efforts to participate in the open forum as a counter-indoctrination effort, giving the event an educational, comparative religions-type, air. To have a single religious voice represented, we feel, gives the impression that a particular religion enjoys special privileges, unique deference, and has managed to co-opt the institutional authority of the schools. We would not want to distribute our materials if no other religious groups were representing theirs. We can view either of the two outcomes as a win.

I also asked him what it meant to him that it took Satanists to (possibly) reverse the policy:

A lot of local media in Florida had reached out to me to ask about what it is, exactly, The Satanic Temple believes. On the one hand, I want people to understand that most of what they think they know about Satanism is merely witch-hunt folklore. On the other hand, in a situation like this, it should also be realized that our beliefs are irrelevant. It simply isn’t up to the school board to filter or judge religious opinion. The very first question they should have considered when the idea of an open forum first surfaced is whether or not they were willing to accommodate all and any religions. This was their most basic duty.

We put together our materials, submitted them for review, and we have volunteers prepared to moderate our open distribution should the forum take place. We went through all of this effort because we gave the School Board the benefit of assuming that they understood and considered the broader implications of their open forum policy when they moved to initiate it. We assumed they understood that such an open forum would necessarily be open to multiple viewpoints.

A decision to reverse the policy lays bare, to all appearances, the cold fact that the school board never intended the “open forum” to be truly open at all. I think it strongly implies that the school board was willing to pander to a specific religious group. I think it calls into question the school board’s very competence, and raises questions about their general understanding of their public duties.

In case you’re curious, the new policy, if adopted, would include this phrase about outside party giveaways:

Materials of a denominational, sectarian, religious, political and partisan nature shall not be permitted to be distributed.

At this point, it’d really be the best option for the district.

(Large portions of this article were posted earlier.)

New Survey Sheds Light on Religion in Latin America; Here’s What We Now Know About the “Nones” in Those Countries

The results of a major new survey on religion in Latin America were released yesterday by the Pew Research Center.

Here are some of the takeaways when it comes to people without religion:

1) Uruguay has the greatest percentage of religiously-unaffiliated people:

The country even warranted a sidebar in the report explaining what’s going on there:

Laicidad, or the separation of religion and the state, has a long history in Uruguay. In 1861, the government nationalized cemeteries across the country, breaking their affiliations with churches. Soon after, the government prohibited churches from having a role in public education or issuing marriage certificates. Secularization continued in the 20th century: A new constitution enshrined the separation of religion from public life, references to God were removed from the parliamentary oath and religious references were dropped from the names of cities and villages.

Today, Uruguay has by far the lowest levels of religious commitment among the countries polled. Fewer than a third of Uruguayans (28%) say that religion is very important in their lives; in no other country surveyed do fewer than four-in-ten people say this. Relatively few Uruguayans say they pray daily (29%) or attend religious services weekly (13%). In neighboring Brazil, by contrast, 61% of adults say they pray daily, and 45% report attending services at least once a week.

2) Even when you break down the Unaffiliated group into atheists, Agnostics, and everyone else, Uruguay still stands out in each category… and U.S. Hispanics (as a group) come out looking far more secular in comparison to other countries:

In case you’re wondering, it’s not surprising that the percentages of atheists and Agnostics is so low down the line. (Even in the U.S., those numbers are in the low-single digits. There are a lot more people who’ll say they’re not religious than those who’ll admit to being atheists.)

3) When you look at the Unaffiliated group, most of them have low or medium-level commitments to religion… so it’s not like they’re super-religious and just hate religious labels. Good news all around.

4) The Unaffiliated, as expected, are younger than their religious counterparts:

5) In most countries, the Unaffiliated are more likely to have higher levels of education:

6) When it comes to understanding science, it’s not surprising which countries are most likely to accept evolution over Creationism. In the graphic below, blue is better.

And keep in mind: These numbers are generous. People who say we “evolved over time” may believe God guides the whole process.

7) Another effect of the religious demographics: It’s not surprising which groups of people are most likely to support marriage equality:

Nice work, Unaffiliated Uruguayans and Argentinians!

8) If you included the United States in that graphic, we wouldn’t be anywhere near the top:

9) Across Latin America, a lot of people raised in religious homes have either become Protestants or shed their labels altogether. And both groups are siphoning people off from the Catholic fold:

10) No, seriously, we’re all siphoning people off from the Catholic fold:

People with no religion also have experienced double-digit gains in a few countries, as more adults report having switched into the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated than report switching out. The unaffiliated have seen significant net gains in Uruguay (plus 15 points), Chile (plus 10 points) and the Dominican Republic (plus 10 points).

11) U.S. Hispanics are more than twice as likely to be Unaffiliated as people in Latin America: 18% vs. 8%:

Man Who Tried to Hook Up With 12-Year-Old Girl Gets Extra-Tough Sentence Because He’s a Pastor

As much as I loathe child-soliciting creeps like youth pastor Deric Peacock, I’m not entirely sure it’s a sound application of legal principles to give him a tougher sentence than a non-clergy perp.

Deric Peacock, 30, was sentenced to serve five years in prison … by [Virginia] Circuit Court Judge Marcus Long. Peacock had online communications in which he exposed himself and said he fantasized about having sex with what he thought were a 12-year-old girl and her mother, but both were in fact a Christiansburg Police Detective.

Long sentenced Peacock to a total of 20 years, but suspended 15. The five-year sentence is 18 months above the high end of usual guidelines in such cases, county Commonwealth’s Attorney Mary Pettitt said. [The judge] agreed to go above guidelines because of Peacock’s role as a minister.

Criminals like this guy rub me the wrong way twice: once for their lawbreaking, and again for their stunning hypocrisy. I feel the same way about IRS employees who commit tax fraud, and about cops who do anti-drug-PSAs… and get caught stealing drugs.

However, being a hypocrite is not, in and of itself, a jailable offense. And what about the bedrock principle of equal treatment under the law?

Why do you agree or disagree with the sentence the judge imposed?

Luke, He Is Your Father

It turns out when Darth Vader spouts Bible verses… he’s just as creepy:

(via Christian Nightmares)

A Child Wants to Read the Bible in Class. School Officials Say That’s Fine. So Why the Lawsuit Threat?

I never understand why parents or grandparents (or their lawyers) run to the media the very moment they think they’re being oppressed by a school administrator when a simple phone call would probably clear everything up.

At La Costa Heights Elementary School in Carlsbad, California, Craig and Lori Nordal, the grandparents of a fourth grade special needs student, are angry because they say school officials oppose the child’s religious freedom during reading time:

The Nordals said they would like Noah to be able to bring his Bible for the half hour period of reading, but two district officials told them the book would not be allowed because it is religious, according to Dean Broyles, an attorney with the conservative Christian nonprofit firm the National Center for Law and Policy.

That sounds… crazy. If students are given time to read any book of their choice, the Bible can’t be off the table as an option. How could anyone say that?

Well, according to the superintendent, no one did:

“At no time did any of our staff deny the child the right to bring his bible to school and read it during free time reading,” [Encinitas Union School District Superintendent Timothy B. Baird] wrote in a statement.

Instead, Baird says the grandparents were asking the teacher to use the Bible as a main teaching tool, which the district told them they could not do because the book did not fall into the specific curricular tools used for Noah’s educational goals.

The lawyer for the Nordals says that’s not the case at all.

Given that this all took place after an in-person meeting with the teacher, it makes me want to scream, “THEN GO TALK TO EACH OTHER AGAIN INSTEAD OF COMPLAINING TO THE PRESS!”

Apparently, the child has brought his Bible to school since the meeting — and there’s been no problem whatsoever. So what exactly is the problem? I have no idea. But getting everything they want isn’t enough for the National Center for Law and Policy, so they’re still demanding an apology from the district… even though the district says there was never any problem with their requests in the first place:

The center says legal action will be taken unless the district sends out a formal apology to Noah and agrees to permit students to read religious books, including the Bible, during free reading times.

Again, they already permit students to do that. You don’t need a lawyer to make that happen. You don’t need an apology note when the district did nothing wrong. You don’t get to claim victory because you misinterpreted what was said in a meeting.

(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to Brian for the link)

Appeals Court Rules Against Atheists, Leaving in Place Tax-Free Housing for Pastors

For years now, the Freedom From Religion Foundation has been in a legal battle to end the “Parsonage Exemption” that allows ministers to deduct the cost of rent for their church-owned houses from their taxable income. FFRF believes that this shows preferential treatment by the government for religious leaders.

FFRF’s own board has even paid its co-presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor $15,000 each as part of their housing allowance, but because they don’t qualify as “ministers of the gospel,” the law doesn’t apply to them. That’s one of the ways they’ve tried to prove the law is illegal.

A year ago, U.S. District Judge Barbara B. Crabb ruled in favor of the FFRF, writing that the exemption was indeed unconstitutional.

Thanks to FFRF, he’s going to have to give some of that money back…

… the exemption provides a benefit to religious persons and no one else, even though doing so is not necessary to alleviate a special burden on religious exercise.

…

… Some might view a rule against preferential treatment as exhibiting hostility toward religion, but equality should never be mistaken for hostility.

…

Although it is undoubtedly true that taxes impose a burden on ministers, the same is true for all taxpayers. Defendants do not identify any reason why a requirement on ministers to pay taxes on a housing allowance is more burdensome for them than for the many millions of others who must pay taxes on income used for housing expenses.

Crabb even laughed off the idea that Barker and Gaylor should be considered “ministers”:

Although defendants devote a substantial amount of their briefs to this argument, it is difficult to take it seriously. Under no remotely plausible interpretation of § 107 could plaintiffs Gaylor and Barker qualify as “ministers of the gospel.”

…

Defendants cite no persuasive evidence that either Gaylor or Barker is ordained, that they perform “sacerdotal” functions or conduct “worship” services, that anyone in the foundation considers Gaylor and Barker to be “spiritual” leaders or that the foundation is under the authority of a “church.”

Which was just the judge’s polite way of saying:

A bit of history: This whole battle has been over Internal Revenue Code section 107, which states:

In the case of a minister of the gospel, gross income does not include –

(1) the rental value of a home furnished to him as part of his compensation; or

(2) the rental allowance paid to him as part of his compensation, to the extent used by him to rent or provide a home and to the extent such allowance does not exceed the fair rental value of the home, including furnishings and appurtenances such as a garage, plus the cost of utilities.

That section was written by Congressman Peter Mack (D-IL) in 1953. As was the case with several pieces of legislation from that era, Mack introduced it to stand against those “godless Communists”:

Certainly, in these times when we are being threatened by a godless and anti-religious world movement we should correct this discrimination against certain ministers of the gospel who are carrying on such a courageous fight against this. Certainly this is not too much to do for these people who are caring for our spiritual welfare.

It has always been about advancing religion and keep down atheism.

And last year, Judge Crabb righted that wrong. That it came nearly 60 years after the law first went into effect was perhaps a sign that tradition alone isn’t a good reason to continue bad policy.

Pastors, of course, will argue that they deserve the exemption — they provide an important service for others and their salaries are (usually) very modest. But then again, teachers could say the same thing, and it’s not like they’re getting a tax break as nice as this.

Not surprisingly, there was an appeal. In September, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments that could overturn Crabb’s ruling, but according to people present that day, the focus was really on whether FFRF had standing to sue:

[Justice Department attorney Judith] Hagley also argued taxpayers do not have the right to litigate the tax liabilities of others. Since this is a tax issue that does not apply to the plaintiffs, she argued they should not even have standing for this case.

In other words, even if the pastors were getting an unfair tax break, who the hell are you people to complain about it? (Then again, if FFRF can’t fight this battle, could anyone?)

Today, we learned the outcome of that discussion.

The Appeals Court has ruled against FFRF, leaving the Parsonage Exemption in place. It’s hardly a silver lining, but the ruling was based entirely on standing, not the merits of their argument:

… the plaintiffs here are members of a group (in this case, the non-religious) that is allegedly suffering illegal discrimination. But the mere fact that discrimination is occurring is not enough to establish standing, absent being “personally denied equal treatment”… Allowing members of discriminated-against groups who have not suffered a particularized injury to bring suit would not only be unconstitutional, it would also create practical difficulties by opening the door to constitutional challenges to any tax exemption that a given individual suspects he may not be entitled to — without first giving the IRS and the Tax Court the opportunity to determine the proper construction and application of the law.

In essence, the Court ruled that if FFRF wants to change the Parsonage Exemption, they should speak with a member of Congress and get a new law passed, because suing isn’t a viable option.

FFRF also has the option of applying for the tax credit themselves, getting rejected, and then suing all over again. I don’t believe they have any intention of doing that because it would require calling themselves “ministers” of atheism, so to speak, a title they strongly disavow.

A few other tidbits:

Forbes points out that there’s a desire to strengthen the exemption so it’s not challenged in the future:

Congressman Bill Cassidy, who is now in a hotly contested runoff for a Senate seat for Louisiana, has introduced legislation to extend “minister of the gospel” status to duly recognized official of religious, spiritual, moral or ethical organizations to protect the dubious constitutionality of the parsonage exclusion.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which loved the ruling, had an interesting take on FFRF’s challenge:

“This is a great victory for fair treatment of churches,” said Luke Goodrich, deputy general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty…

“When a group of atheists tries to cajole the IRS into raising taxes on churches, it’s bound to raise some eyebrows,” he said. “The court was right to send them packing.”

How’s that for spin? FFRF didn’t want to “raise” taxes on churches; they wanted to remove an unfair tax break that church leaders get. It may amount to the same thing financially, but the motives are very different. This wasn’t about spite. It was about equal treatment in the eyes of the government.

FFRF now says they plan to regroup. They can always appeal to the full Seventh Circuit, but there’s no guarantee all the judges will want to reopen this case. They can appeal directly to the Supreme Court, but there’s virtually no chance they’ll get heard there (or win).

Gaylor and Barker took issue with the appeals court’s cavalier assessment that they have suffered no concrete injury, since they must pay taxes on their housing allowance, while ministers are rewarded, simply for being religious leaders, with a unique and substantial tax benefit. The parish allowance is not a tax deduction but an exemption — housing allowances are subtracted from taxable income.

“We will continue to challenge this indefensible favoritism for religion in other forums until the issue cannot be circumvented,” Barker said.

Barker, by the way, is a former minister who was rewarded with this subsidy when he was “Reverend Barker,” a believer, and is now penalized as “Mr. Barker,” serving as a freethought leader.

It’s certainly a disappointing ruling, but I have to say it’s not a surprising one. We’re so used to privileging religion in this country that it’s hard to imagine how any court was going to remove one of the biggest perks of pastoring.

(Image via Shutterstock. Large portions of this article were published earlier)