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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tikal!cholula!persci!bill
From: bill@persci.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion
Subject: Re: "Tax Supported" Churches.
Message-ID: <416@persci.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Sep-85 15:04:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: persci.416
Posted: Wed Sep 25 15:04:30 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Sep-85 04:44:13 EDT
References: <5958@cbscc.UUCP> <880@abnji.UUCP>
Reply-To: bill@persci.UUCP (William Swan)
Organization: Summation Inc, Woodinville WA
Lines: 24
Xref: watmath net.politics:11199 net.religion:7772

In article <880@abnji.UUCP> nyssa@abnji.UUCP (nyssa of traken) writes:
>If a church catches fire, I would assume that the local fire company
>will go to put out the fire.  Is that a violation of church and state?
>Isn't is a situation where a government does serve a church?
>James C. Armstrong, Jnr.	{ihnp4,cbosgd,akgua}!abnji!nyssa

Hardly. The original expression is something on the order of: "..shall make
no laws respecting any establishment of religion..". This is read to mean
that the government is not to declare that one religion is preferable to 
another, nor to enact laws to the same end. This is what is commonly
referred as the separation of church and state.

This is not to say that certain laws do not work to the advantage of one
church over another. For example, a church I know, part of the Continuing
Episcopal Church (an "offshoot" of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA)
is trying very hard to get established, and build a building. Property taxes,
building permits, etc, are draining their very limited finances, making it
very hard to get going. A PECUSA church doesn't have that problem, because
of their wealthy backers. This does not mean that the law is being
preferential to PECUSA churches over this Traditional Episcopal church.


-- 
William Swan  {ihnp4,decvax,allegra,...}!uw-beaver!tikal!persci!bill