Rhode Island florists refuse to deliver FFRF’s flowers to Jessica Ahlquist

The Freedom From Religion Foundation discovered the shocking extent of petty and vindictive community reactions against 16 year old litigant Jessica Ahlquist when it attempted earlier this week to order a dozen roses to be delivered to the victorious state/church plaintiff in Cranson, R.I. FFRF is in the process of filing a complaint about one of the floral shops with Rhode Island’s human rights division over the civil rights violation. Working through a Wisconsin flower shop Tuesday, Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president, placed what she believed to be a routine order: A dozen red roses to be delivered on Wednesday with the message to Jessica: “Congratulations, and hang in there, with admiration from FFRF.” Late yesterday, the local florist called FFRF’s office to report she had struck out at three Cranston florist’s shops, including at Twins Florist, which responded to the order in writing with this statement: “I will not deliver to this person.” The other two shops mysteriously produced unusual excuses for refusing the order. Gaylor said when she heard this news, “My jaw literally dropped. Everyone is stunned by the bigotry.” FFRF was told a Warwick floral shop as of Wednesday had agreed to make the delivery today with no additional long distance charge. This morning, FFRF discovered it too was refusing the order, citing the excuse of unwanted media attention. Thanks to an FFRF member’s referral, FFRF has placed an order out of state with a friendly shop, Glimpse of Gaia, in Putnam, Ct., which has agreed to deliver a dozen roses. In addition to sending flowers, FFRF announced, after Jessica’s state legislator had called her “an evil little thing,” that it is re-awarding Jessica its Thomas Jefferson Student Activist award, this time doubling the scholarship to $2,000. “The thicker critics lay on the hate, the more we freethinkers will support Jessica,” Gaylor said. FFRF, a 501(c)(3) a charity which has run a student activist scholarship fund in an accountable fashion for decades, has also announced a new scholarship, “The Atheists in a Foxhole Support Fund,” and is making Jessica the first recipient. (Donate to the fund here.) The petite Jessica, who was already a lightning rod at her Cranson high school for challenging an illegal prayer banner in her auditorium, has come under a firestorm of local revilement since winning a federal judgment in her favor on Jan. 11. She has received nonstop abuse, even death wishes, via Twitter and social network sites, including by schoolmates. “The vicious reaction in Rhode Island, where it seems nearly the entire state has banded together to bully and revile one very tiny and courageous teenager, is out of bounds and out of control. The Cranston school board, by not yet accepting the judge’s ruling, is, by its inaction, egging on Jessica’s abusers and fanning the controversy. It should be over with this strong ruling,” noted Gaylor. Jessica was named FFRF’s Thomas Jefferson Student Activist awardee last year, wowing and charming the 34th annual national FFRF when she accepted her $1,000 scholarship in person. “Rhode Island legislators, instead of calling her names, ought to be giving Jessica a commendation for her patriotism in standing up for the precious principle of separation between state and church,” said Dan Barker, FFRF co-president. “The hostility against Jessica is giving Rhode Island a black eye. It is time for reason to prevail and the law to be abided by.”

FFRF

Wow Rhode Island, just, wow.

You're just that insecure about your religion that you have to band together, as an entire collection of peoples, to bully one teenager?

Wow.

~Mooglets

atheismfuckyeah

Atheist Group Sues Over Clergy Housing Allowance

An atheist organization, claiming government favoritism toward religion, filed a lawsuit Sept. 12 challenging the constitutionality of a federal tax provision allowing ministers to claim a tax exemption on their housing costs.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., claims that the IRS code bestows preferential tax benefits to “ministers of the gospel” in violation of the First Amendment’s required separation of church and state.

Many churches allot their ministers a housing allowance as part of their overall compensation package. Opponents of the monetary perk, like FFRF, claim nonbelieving directors should receive the same benefit.

What makes the housing allowance even more offensive to FFRF is that housing payments for ministers preaching the Gospel also are exempt from most states’ income tax. "These and other determinations result in 'excessive entanglements' between church and state," the atheist group contends.

Currently, IRS laws state that ministers, who are paid in tax-free dollars, may deduct their mortgage interest and property tax payments. Moreover, allowances paid to religious leaders are not treated as taxable income.

The law was passed in 1954. In addition to exempting clergy from paying taxes on portions of their income designated as their ministerial housing allowance, it also applies to income used to purchase or rent a home, including furnishings and utilities.

“Because ‘ministers of the gospel’ are singled out as a class to uniquely claim these benefits, the statutes convey a governmental message of endorsement and unconstitutionally favor religious employees and institutions over others,” FFRF’s lawsuit says.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman are named as defendants in the federal suit. FFRF members Dan Barker, Annie Laurie Gaylor and Anne Nicol Gaylor are listed as plaintiffs.

In its legal challenge, FFRF notes all three plaintiffs “receive part of their salaries designated for a housing allowance. Yet they do not qualify for the parish exemption as they are not ‘ministers of the gospel.’”

“One of the plaintiffs claims to be an ordained minister who benefited from housing allowances paid to him by prior church employers but does not qualify now that he is no longer a preaching minister,” Bob Allen wrote in the Baptist Press.

This is not the first time FFRF has filed a lawsuit against ministers receiving the IRS tax break.

In June, the litigious atheist organization filed a voluntary dismissal of a previous lawsuit in a federal district court in Sacramento, Calif.

According to freechurchaccounting.com, it is very beneficial for ministers to have a housing allowance because it is excluded from federal income tax. However, it is not exempt from the minister’s self-employment taxes.

"The minister has the responsibility of tracking actual housing expenses and determining the fair rental value of the housing," the church accounting website states. "The church should never know, and has no right to know, what the minister does with his housing allowance."

John Witte, director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University in Atlanta, told the Wisconsin State Journal that he expects FFRF’s case to gain little traction.

"This is a pretty easy case," Witte said. "I think the Supreme Court has made it clear that tax exemption cases are for the legislature, not for the courts, to decide."

The late Rep. Peter Mack (D-Ill.) authored the 1954 amendment to the IRS code now being challenged by FFRF.

“Certainly,” he said, during debate on the amendment, “ in these times when we are being threatened by a godless and anti-religious world movement we should correct this discrimination against certain ministers of the gospel who are carrying on such a courageous fight against this foe. Certainly this is not too much to do for these people who are caring for our spiritual welfare."

From ChristianPost

I'm with the FFRF on this one.

~Mooglets

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