We would all win if churches - and atheism - were taxed

That is especially the case at a state level, where no legal action could be brought to argue the NSW government’s $100M+ funding of the Pope’s World Youth Day in 2008 was unconstitutional because there is no section in the NSW Constitution separating church and state. That is true for all other Australian state constitutions.

Second, there is no reason, apart from a theocratic one, to assert that religion should be given special status in a democracy. All organisations, be they religious, atheist or secular, should be treated equally for tax purposes. Equal treatment is supposed to be a feature of democracy.

Lyle concludes that the argument that churches should be taxed is driven by a small minority who have a distaste for Christianity. On the evening of Sunday the 12^th of July this year, the Reverend Bill Crews of the Uniting Church, on his regular program on Radio 2GB, said he believed churches should be taxed. Bill Crews runs the Exodus Foundation, which feeds Sydney’s down-and-out citizens daily. Unlike many religious, he is at the coal face doing good works. His comment infers he understands the distinction between religion as a stand-alone form of charity and true charitable works.

Further back in time, in 1975, the Social Responsibilities Commission of the Anglican Church said in its report entitled ‘The Politics of Living’ that ‘an attempt to argue that the church, because it is the church, has some inherent, superior right to privilege is bound to backfire as it becomes clearer that Australia is and must be a secular society.’ The Report urged a complete study of ‘the whole question of privileges extended to the church and all other special interest groups.’ (‘Church hit over its privileges’ The Age 11 November, 1975) This Report has disappeared without a trace.