Tallahassee Democrat | Texas official says Unitarian church not tax-exempt

"Unitarian Universalists have for decades presided over births, marriages and memorials. The church operates in every state, with more than 5,000 members in Texas alone.

But according to the office of Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a Texas Unitarian church isn't really a religious organization - at least for tax purposes. Its reasoning: The organization 'does not have one system of belief.'"

My friend Andrew Boucher turned me on to this story, still apparently little covered in the press.

Seems that instead of denying tax-exempt status to any number of crackpot, money-grubbing "religions" that reside in Texas (no need to name them, you know who they are), the current Rebubbalican Texas Comptroller has decided to do it to the Unitarians.

Many folks don't know who the Unitarians are or the important part that they haved played in the founding of the US. Probably Comptroller Strayhorn doesn't even know that. But what she probably does know is that Unitarians are known to be humanists, human-rights backers, intellectuals and, god forbid, democrats!

One thing I read that truly mystifies me:

"Strayhorn's ruling, as well as a similar decision by former Comptroller John Sharp, has left the Texas comptroller's office straddling a sometimes murky gulf separating church and state."

John Sharp happens to familiar with the Victoria Unitarian Fellowship and it seems highly surprising that Strayhorn would use one of John Sharp's actions as a legal precedent for exluding Unitarians from church-status.

I found some information from another Dallas-FortWorth Star Telegram article:

"The reason for that, he said, is precedent in a similar case, inherited from former Texas Comptroller John Sharp, in which a tax exemption was denied to the Ethical Culture Fellowship of Austin. The Austin group filed suit and has won its case at the Texas Supreme Court level."

A group calling itself the "Ethical Culture Fellowship" may not apply. Is it a religion or not? I couldn't say. But suggesting a well founded, 300 year-old religion, much older than the Mormons, may not be a "religion" is sheer partisan poppycock.