An Aggressive Atheist Rebuffed

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .

-- First Amendment Despite its willingness to seal just about every crack in the wall separating church and state in the U.S., the Supreme Court has never specifically tackled what some lawyers consider a serious fissure -- the fact that all 50 states permit tax exemption for any house of worship or parsonage or place of religious teaching. Since 1956, the court has rejected three cases which argued that such exemption violates the First Amendment's establishment clause. Last week the court did it again; this time it was the case of Atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who claims that church exemption hikes taxes for other property owners and amounts to taxation in support of religion.

The court thus left standing a significant decision by the Maryland Court of Appeals, which had ruled against Atheist O'Hair -- while readily conceding her basic point. Not only do such exemptions raise everyone else's taxes, agreed the Maryland court, but they also give religious organizations the equivalent of indirect government grants. Even so, the court insisted, such "grants" do not violate the establishment clause because their prime purpose is secular rather than sectarian. While religious organizations get a tax break, the general public gets an even bigger break through such church activities as aid to the poor and aged, day nurseries, care of the sick, and efforts to eliminate racial inequalities. Said the Maryland decision: "The performance of these functions by private agencies saves the state the expense of providing the same services."

Maryland makes equal exemptions for many other kinds of charitable organizations that perform similar services. If religious groups were forced to give up tax exemptions, "serious questions of unconstitutional discrimination might arise." Indeed, taxing churches might well violate the First Amendment's "free exercise" clause. By contrast, suggested the Maryland court, not taxing churches may strengthen religious freedom.

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