Angry in the Great White North

In a oft-repeated quote:

"If you are at the public trough, if you are collecting taxpayers' money, you should be following taxpayers' laws. And that means adhering to the Charter," says Kevin Bourassa, who in 2001 married Joe Varnell in one of Canada's first gay weddings, and is behind www.equalmarriage.ca.

"We have no problem with the Catholic Church or any other faith group promoting bigotry," he said. "We have a problem with the Canadian government funding that bigotry."

(Originally quoted in the Calgary Herald, but that page is now gone, so I'm re-quoting from small dead animals).

Tax-exemption of religious institutions is not a reward or a bonus, nor is it a form of subsidy. It is an age-old arrangement to ensure that Church and State don't intersect in each other's spheres. If religious institutions were subject to tax, then like any taxed corporation, they would be deeply involved in lobbying on the minutia of the tax code, trying to alter secular law in order to maximize their secular benefits.

In other words, taxing the Catholic Church would have the effect of injecting the Church into purely secular debates that have no moral component.

And I thought Bourassa and his ilk were trying to shut the Catholic Church up. Take away tax exempt status, and the Church is going to be popping up all over the place on Parliament Hill, and it would be perfectly legal. Private meetings between bishops and ministers, where I'm sure no moral issues will be raised. Big fat political donations funneled through individual priests and laymen, but certainly not for the any consideration on bills like C-38, just about some change to the tax code.

Yeah, right. Nice going, Bourassa.

[By the way, a similar reasoning is behind an unmarried priesthood. If priests were allowed to be married and have families, or so the reasoning goes, they would be saddled with the same financial pressures that we laymen with families have. Children demanding the latest video games and a wife complaining that the kitchen needs remodeling. Being a priest stops being a vocation and starts being a job, and then the priest starts wondering if there might not be better paying jobs out there.]

That is not to say that a religious institution is exempt from the law when it is exempt from taxes -- Bourassa is right on that. But then he doesn't understand the law, which pretty much ruins his one moment of clear thinking. Which taxpayers' laws was the Catholic Church breaking when she argued against same-sex marriage, contributed to the court debate on same-sex marriage, wrote letters against same-sex marriage, made presentations to the Commons committee on same-sex marriage?

I think Bourassa is confused. It's not against the law to be against same-sex marriage.

I think that is the root of his anger. He can succeed at forcing changes in the law, but he can't succeed at forcing people like me to change our minds.

And, so far at least, the Charter is on my side on this point, not his. I'd like to invite him to start adhering to his precious Charter.