The town told Connell that, if the IRS recognized the Peaceful Assembly Church as a public charity, it would give the town grounds to approve his tax exemption application without opening the floodgates to a tsunami of frivolous claims. Grafton officials were eager to put the matter to rest because by now it seemed that every time the issue was raised in public, two or three people would threaten to declare that their own houses were churches too. But Connell had just one small problem with clearing the low bar that the town set out. To apply for nonprofit status with the IRS, he would have to
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