THEIST_WATCH
  Msg  : 74                                         Written : 08/11/94 06:17pm
  From : ROBIN MURRAY-O'HAIR                        Status  :                 
  To   : ALL                                                                  
  Subj : Taxes Anyone?                                                        

                          Taxes Anyone?

     In 1989, the Supreme Court of the United State, in effect, struck
down a Texas statute which gave exemption from sales tax to religious
periodicals.
     Later, Jimmy Swaggart was told by California that he must pay the
sales taxes on Bibles which he sold in that state.
     Nothing of that means anything to Rhode Island. It insists that it
must "preserve" its sales tax exemption for Bibles and other "canonized
scriptures."
     The state, which is 65 percent Roman Catholic, refused to follow
the 1963 Supreme Court decision (Murray v. Curlett) and stop Bible
reading and prayer recitation in the public schools of Rhode Island.
     As an excuse for not following the Supreme Court ruling one
senator explained:

          If you read the state Constitution, it says you will
     not be encumbered in any way to freely practice your
     religion. The Constitution goes out of its way to state that
     freedom of religion is paramount. I would argue that a
     (sales) tax is an unnecessary burden on the freedom of
     religion.

     What else can we say? Another moron Senator opined that the
Supreme Court case did not apply in Rhode Island, because "the history
of the Constitution in Rhode Island" was a more applicable statute.


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