fortinbras wrote:

Link to YouTube page

I don't know how I'd forgotten about that big production number. Thanks Fortie.

4. Alliance Defense Fund

President, CEO and General Counsel: Alan Sears

2007 Revenue: $31,674,124

Location: Scottsdale, Ariz.

Web site: www.alliancedefensefund.org

Overview: Founded in 1993 by a coalition of more than 30 Religious Right leaders, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has become the nation's most prominent Religious Right legal group....



The ADF has worked aggressively to lure churches into a right-wing political machine. This year, it announced plans to urge evangelical pastors to openly defy federal tax law by endorsing or opposing candidates from the pulpit. The drive sparked a backlash from a group of Ohio clergy and tax law experts, who asked the IRS to investigate ADF lawyers for urging churches to violate tax law.

Working with a network of pro bono attorneys nationwide, the ADF offers training for both established lawyers and law students. The latter are "equipped with a distinctly Christian worldview in every area of life, particularly in the areas of law and public policy," boasts the ADF Web site.

fnord wrote:

A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

In Columbia, SC, the state's capital, I discovered that between all the churches and State Government facilities (including the University of SC) about 66% of all property was not on the tax rolls.

If the government doesn't want to tax a church's income, fine.  But property that goes off the tax rolls rarely, if ever, goes back on.  When churches grow too big for their property, they tend to move and sell the property to another, smaller, church group.  Only once do I remember eating in a restaurant that used to be a church.  Churches should pay property tax.