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Now, fast forward to the practical aspect of this judicial
decision and I used the word “judicial’ advisedly, since
people may suspect or believe that just because a decision
is reached, that somehow that calms the waters and or
smoothes out the rough edges of its practical
implementation.
Remember the seminal case of Brown v. Board of
Education? It was decided in 1954 and, to my opinion,
the reaches and the failures of Brown are still with us with
so many school systems still profoundly segregated and the
effects of that “unequal” education still looms in America
via unemployment, housing and social integration.
Over 60 years later, we are still reading about the
pernicious effects of a culturally shocking Supreme Court
decision still not being respected and fully implemented.
Resistance to Brown and its progeny are still
amongst us. When Brown was first reported out and 10
years subsequent to that issuance, President Lyndon B.
Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he
prophetically stated, “That we (the Democratic Party) have
just lost the South (the white Southern voter).
All so true when the South, as seemingly upon a dime,
shifted from being Democratic voters to that of Republicans
voters and all to the happy squeals of Ronald Reagan and the
Republican presidents thereafter.
To unload Brown and its progeny, it would take
multiple volumes to explain how the country’s resistance to
Brown seeped into so many parts of the American way
of life when a court told the country that it had to
dismantle all vestiges of discrimination including how it
educates future generations of American kids.
Well, what will be equally troublesome and puzzling
will be the minutiae of implementing the recent decision of
the Supreme Court allowing same-sex marriages.
This is virgin territory and with thousands of entities
including hospitals and churches and private universities
which have had long-standing policies that unilaterally
reject the notion of same-sex marriages, it will be a
lawyer’s playground as to testing and challenging a vast
hodgepodge of rules and regulations and laws and customs
that have excluded those who are in a gay marriage.
The difficulty in my opinion will be that America will
have to come to grips with a fiction that for millions will
be untenable or a concept of a discussion that has not been
fully reckoned with and that is: America is not, “One Nation
Under God”
Nor do we do a good job of modeling, “In God We Trust.”
Unless those two concepts are brought in the public
discussion, the conversation of the implications of same sex
marriage with be 2-D and not 3-D.
Why? Any tax exempt religious institution that enjoys
tax breaks or a religious-exempted foundation or charity or
hospital or college will have to make a jarring decision and
that is: “Do we continue with our belief system that clearly
states that we model our care and services and methodology
after the tenets of the Gospel of Jesus Christ or do we
absorb the worldview that embraces same sex marriages?”
If you stand apart and do not absorb it and do not
change your policies to reflect a change of your faith
position in that you now will accept same sex marriages as
being, “OK”, you have lost your identity and do not deserve
tax-exempt status.
If your employment policies as an adoption agency or a
medical center or a half-way house includes in your mission
statement (Cherry Street Mission or Grace Mission?)
references to Jesus or to biblical statements as your
standard and those standards do not allow a flagrant
trespass as acknowledging same-sex marriages as being
biblically proper, you are in trouble.
If your college or your offered scholarships or your
employment requirements indicate an allegiance to biblical
principles and you refuse to amend or delete those founding
principles, you are in trouble. Remember the ghosts of
Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby?
If your religious organization which receives a United
States government stamp of tax-exempt approval and you
forbid the employment of gays and those who are in a
same-sex marriage, you are in trouble.
Think of the billions of dollars that religious
tax-exempt organizations enjoy be they the Catholic Church,
the Methodist Church, Church of Scientology, Quakers,
Mormons, the list goes on and on and on.
Now think of someone challenging their right to be free
from public taxation due to their outright “discrimination”
against those in a same-sex marriage or those who are gay.
The myriad of lawsuits challenging such tax-exempt
perks and privileges is only
a matter of time before some gay organization yells, “Foul!”
and wants the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on whether
organizations that have a custom or practice or a written
policy of saying no to gays or those in gay marriages can
continue to enjoy their tax-exempt status and the
accompanying income and real estate thereto.
Their argument is quite simple. Equal protection can
mean that I am treated equally as others in the same
situation and if I am not treated equally for a job that I
am qualified for simply due to being in a same-sex marriage,
the government should not reward such discrimination with a
tax-exempt status since it will diminish the ruling by the
court that same-sex marriages are the law of the land.
Yes, private religious organizations can say no to
those who do not meet their religious scruples but, can they
successfully continue to do so when they are getting fat and
juicy tax exemptions that are supersized?
This breach in the wall of America which professes to be
a God-based nation is quickly crumbling when the American
public has a sea change of attitude about what God has
called sin. They better be prepared to lose some perks and
goodies when the United States Supreme Court weighs in (in
the near future) and strips all religious tax-exempt
organizations of their right to go tax free but still
“discriminate” against same-sex marriages and their
participants.
This cataclysmic social challenge will have this country
revisiting its religious convictions so as to find out how
much trust they still have or want to have in the God that
they profess they are both submitted to and in whom they
trust.
This decision will foment that discussion!
If you fight for the moral imprimatur of God in the
marketplace, then it is probable that the federal taxing
agency (The IRS) can take away favorable tax-exempt coverage
from those entities that disobey the reign and rule of the
IRS when the IRS says No! to God.
Now, America…Who’s Your Daddy? The tax man or God?
Contact Lafe Tolliver at Tolliver@Juno.com
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