Your tax dollars are building the religious right's empire

[workinclasszero]

Your tax dollars are building the religious right's empire
By John Gallagher · Saturday, April 21, 2018

You may have seen the ads for Liberty University Online and realized that this is the conservative Christian college headed by Trump defender Jerry Falwell Jr. What you probably didn’t realize is that your tax dollars have helped Falwell expand his empire.

And Falwell’s enterprise is not the only homophobic organization to benefit from the federal government. Focus on the Family has also worked the federal bureaucracy to ensure that it is now classified a church by the IRS.

An in-depth investigation by The New York Times and ProPubica found that Liberty University is now the second-largest online provider of online education, and it is relying on federal student loans and grants to fuel its growth. The upshot is that Liberty University is now a $1 billion enterprise, with the bulk of that revenue coming from taxpayer-funded sources.

Liberty University isn’t the only institution to wag its finger at the federal government while bending it to its benefit. The right-wing Focus on the Family somehow convinced the IRS that it is a church, even though by almost any objective standard, it’s a religious nonprofit.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/04/tax-dollars-building-religious-rights-empire/

[BSdetect]

1. We need to form a "religion" for atheists.

Now that would be a worthwhile investment for some wealthy dem donors to get started.

[Nay]

2. There are several, actually. "Sunday Assembly" churches are atheist, but they

don't seem to have caught on well. Unitarian Universalist churches are often mainly atheist although they accept people of all faiths and no faith. I do wish one of these church organizations would get a lot of financial support from liberal billionaires, too.

[appalachiablue]

3. The new, private Museum of the Bible in DC on the Mall opened 2017

promotes Christian outreach to schools. Another large boost to private education with a religious emphasis.

https://www.museumofthebible.org/

[BSdetect]

4. k&r