Religion and politics don’t mix

These days, I come across more and more American clergy getting involved in politics. Whether it’s Protestant or Catholic, they’re there to tell me how I should live my life, and how American culture should behave.

I think to myself, why aren’t we taxing churches in America if they’re going to get involved in the world of secular politics?

America is facing a national debt of approximately $40 trillion, give or take a few billion, so think how much extra tax revenue might be generated if we taxed churches. Our 2026 fiscal year budget deficit reached about $2 trillion.

I’m not talking about the little churches who stick to spiritual matters and the lives of their local parishioners.

No, I’m talking about the rich Catholic archdioceses, or the rich Protestant churches, who have the money to build multi-million-dollar facilities, while telling people how they should live their lives, telling people who they should support as a political candidate, if not overtly, then certainly covertly.

You tell me homosexuality is wrong because the Bible says it is. I say, then let’s stick solely to the literal words in scripture. Because if we do that, slavery is clearly something we should endorse, too, since the Bible clearly supports its practice. And why not stone the teens who talk back to mom and dad, since the Bible also dictates that? Women? They should be seen and not heard, according to the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments. Even though Jesus clearly broke the norm by hanging out with the fairer sex, including them in his ministry.

The churches who venture into the debate over abortion, tax them too. If the clergy want to council their parishioners to avoid abortions, fine. But don’t go on the airwaves, or on the TV, telling people how terrible abortions are, when that’s clearly venturing into the area of politics, where clergy have no place being.

Meanwhile, some clergy not only support every war that comes down the pike, but actively cheer on the carnage, as if the lives of Muslims stand for nothing.

Tax Them

If clergy want to venture there, into the political/cultural arena, then tax them, because it’s clear they’re trying to sway an election.

I remember when a group of Catholic bishops said that Catholics shouldn’t support John Kerry because he supported abortion. What about Bush’s support of war, I asked at the time? And why were they even spouting off during a national election? Weren’t there some pedophile victims they could spend their time with, helping them overcome a terrible crime done to them?

More to the point, some of Trump’s biggest supporters among Protestant preachers see no problem with him continuing to shield the Jeffrey Epstein class from criminal prosecution.

How can the Catholic bishops enjoy tax breaks when they’re trying to manipulate the political process by laying a guilt trip on Catholics for voting for a pro-abortion candidate?

Switching to Protestant Preachers like John Hagee out of San Antonio, who lives in a 9,000 square-foot mansion, and whose church enjoys tax-exempt status, tax him too. He’s on the radio all the time, telling us how Democrats are terrible people for supporting homosexuality and abortion. Maybe if he were taxed, he’d shut up. He’s another one in support of this insane War in Iran.

But seriously, it’s time to debate the issue of church taxation. Like I said, not for the small ones who focus solely on spiritual matters. But for the big ones, Catholic or Protestant, who want to stick their collective noses into the American political process and tell Americans how we should live our lives, who we should vote for, I say tax them.

The sooner, the better.