Gayfolk can be a funny lot. You gotta love ‘em.
Excellent lead editorial today in the Calgary Herald.
Gay activist shows his hand
Call to yank tax-exempt status a threat to religious freedom
One might suppose gay marriage extremists would wait for the Liberals’ contentious same-sex legislation to pass before uttering triumphalist comments about the next round in their battle with the churches.Apparently, some can’t, and Toronto gay rights activist Kevin Bourassa has confirmed the suspicions of religious opponents to same-sex marriage. A partner in one of Canada’s first same-sex wedding ceremonies, he said churches opposing same-sex marriage—while free to be “promoting bigotry”—should lose their tax exemption.
“If you’re at the public trough, if you are collecting taxpayers’ money, you should be following taxpayers’ laws.”
It is curious to think of tax exemption as a gift from taxpayers. In any case, churches have been equal opportunity promoters of bigotry against adulterers, thieves and bearers of false witness for thousands of years. Why should the gays complain?
At a deeper level, his argument depends on two common misconceptions: that all rights emanate from the state, and that it owns a nation’s wealth and therefore, if citizens are allowed to keep a variably set portion of their earnings, it is only at the state’s pleasure.
That is Cuba, not Canada. It is implicit from Canada’s politics—the election of representatives and their responsibility to voters—that freedom is no gift of the Crown. Canadians are born into freedom. And, Canadians have legitimately chosen to leave some institutions alone because they are servants to society, running parallel with government. Thus, the tax exemptions accorded the church are not dependent upon their compliance to the governmental whim of the moment, but on a deep and enduring separation.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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