In California the state Supreme Court recently ruled that a religious charity must provide birth-control coverage even though the religion may forbid it. The ruling passed near unanimous except for a lone holdout - a Bush appointee (surprise!) - named Janice Brown.

"Here we are dealing with an intentional, purposeful intrusion into a religious organization's expression of its religious tenets and sense of mission," Brown wrote. "The government is not accidentally or incidentally interfering with religious practice; it is doing so willfully by making a judgment about what is or is not a religion."

So she's saying that the Government shouldn't decide what constitutes a religion and I agree. *BUT* the Government does regularly decide what is a religion. Religious groups seeking tax-exempt status must apply to the IRS which has to decide - essentially - whether to recognize the group as a religion and therefore eligible for such status. So really this line of dissent for Judge Brown is ludicrous and -yes - if the religious group is giving their employees medical coverage it is none of their bees wax which aspects of the coverage the employees use. Privacy you know.

Of course, there's a variety of solutions.

(1) You could have a religious-based HMO that wouldn't offer birth-control or any other sort of offensible coverage. Expect this one to become reality. Though what happens when religion and the hypocratic oath collide, like when the religion doesn't believe in transfusions but that's what's needed to save the patient. Where would the liability fall? Would exorcisms be a covered benefit?


(2) Stop offering the medical coverage and give the employee the money to allow them to join a coverage of their choice. It is cheaper to join through a company interface than as an individual but this is a viable option. Which then is more important to the company, their religious dictums or giving the employees enough money for satisfactory coverage.

(3) Don't hire employees outside of your religious bounds. Oh wait, that's illegal! Gosh darn.

In general though what to with religion groups and their tax-exempt status. I see churches everywhere, sucking up real estate, always growing. How soon before all American land belongs to the tax-free and sheltered? I've got a couple of ideas:

(1) Since religion is a set of beliefs bound by faith (that is, untested, unproven evidence) and we all have some degrees of beliefs based on faith, we should all therefore be considered religions unto ourselves whether en masse in similar spirit or single in unique spirit. We should therefore all enjoy tax-exempt status. Think the IRS would accept that? Do you think they'd accept "The Evangelical Church of Our Loving Saint"? How about "The Ecstatic Church of Our Lord's Everlasting Passion"? How about "The Church of the Everstanding Pecker"? If the members fervently believe in the groups teachings the IRS should grant all or none tax-exempt status, right? Wrong. My guess is that the closer you are to a mainstream "recognized" religion the more likely you are to receive tax-exempt status.

From the IRS site regarding self-employment tax (but holds for other payments as well):


"You can receive exemption from coverage for your ministerial duties if you conscientiously oppose public insurance due to religious reasons or if you oppose it due to the religious principles of your denomination." I oppose! I oppose! Give me my money back.


(2) Since the Government shouldn't be in the Religion business and all religions offers services, religious groups should therefore be taxed like businesses. No more tax-exempt status at all. The IRS would enjoy increased tax revenues and would have rights to access financial records for all religious groups, including ones on the fringe. Our security would increase because of the increased scrutiny of money accountability. And, of course, the separation of church and state would be reinforced.

Money Here and There

As many of us file our tax returns electronically I think it'd be neat to be able to specify how our tax dollars should be distributed. It'd be fairly simple to have in the software a spreadsheet type screen that shows how much you're paying and what categories you can distribute the money into. The categories could be broad like Military, Education, etc but would allow drill down to more details. The screen would keep a running total of allocations until your money runs out. Or if you leave any money it'd get swept up into a general fund. If anything it'd be a neat exercise to see how the American public would distribute the income plus it would educate the populace in the complexities of the National Budget. It might be fun too. Making taxes fun...