Hacker News Reader

Comment by Amorymeltzer | Hacker News Reader

15 points·Amorymeltzer··7 comments

In Israel we have a political party of orthodox Jews where the leader rabbi of Orthodox Jews tells all his followers to vote for them, and they have the highest voter participation of all groups because of their high discipline of listening to their rabbi.

What their elected leaders do is ensure they get state funding for studying the Bible instead of working.

Do I hate every single shekel they get from me ? Absolutely.

Would it be democratical to prevent them from endorsing their candidates? No.

The difference is that, in the US, the Constitution specifically calls out the separation of Church and State. Every single one of these churches should lose their tax exempt status.

The separation of church and state in the constitution specifically refers to the state imposing religion on its constituents. Absolutely nothing to do with taxes or limiting the free speech of religious organizations.

Indeed. The whole purpose of the Constitution was to delineate "the government can do these, and _nothing but_ these specific things." Every power not explicitly granted to the government was understood as left to the People.

The Constitution is not as much a document of the State's powers as much as a document about the limits thereof.

Lost tax revenues are essentially sponsoring and favoring a religion over others. That's the same as the state promoting a religion.

And pay back taxes with penalties.

Johnson Amendment's going to come to the Supreme Court.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com