There's lots of talk this morning of a boycott, targeting businesses of various kinds who are perceived by the diarist as supporters of Prop 8 in California, denying civil rights to same-sex couples that, until November 4th, were guaranteed by California's constitution.
Boycotts may be a useful tool, if they are targeted at the right businesses for the right reasons. I'm not convinced that a boycott would be an effective weapon in this case. There is a better way to deal with the people who bankrolled Prop 8.
Step back, focus more on the right target, and use your best weapon in the battle: Your new Democratic administration and legislative majorities.
Follow me over the fold for a description of the target, and of our weapons.
The Target:
So who was behind Prop8? Likely, we don't know all the entities who helped in the attempt to deny basic civil rights to Californians. But we know a couple big ones: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and the Catholic Church.
If you stop and think about those two villains, they have something in common that made them particularly effective: Tax advantaged money. Their supporters get a tax break when they make donations to their churches. The earnings on the churches' investments are likewise allowed to compound, tax free.
Prop 8's opponents were forced to wage the battle with after-tax dollars, putting them at a severe disadvantage. The money we donated came from our after tax earnings. In other words, it takes far more dollars from our pockets to make a donation to Prop 8's opponents that equals the donation made by its supporters. We have to donate 100 after tax dollars to equal their donation of 50 tax-free dollars.
So why do we have a system that gives one set of actors on the political playing field a significant tax advantage? Because we have a broken tax system, and for too long, Republicans have used that system to their advantage.
The tax code was written to encourage private citizens and entities to take on some of the work in our communities that government would otherwise have to provide. We want churches to do charitable work in our communities, and we want Americans to donate and support those churches, so the tax code gives them big tax breaks. Churches, assuming they are tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3), do not pay income taxes on either the donations or other sources of income to the churches, or on the earnings from their investments. Follow the tax breaks down the line, and we find that church members and other entities can get tax breaks for the amounts they contribute to their churches. If they contribute a tenth of their income in a given year, they pay no income tax on that income.
This puts chruches in a powerful position when it comes time to influence political activities.
BUT THEY AREN"T ALLOWED TO INFLUENCE POLITICAL ACTIVITIES, ARE THEY?
Well, no . . . and yes. Churches are actually allowed to participate in lobbying activities, so long as their lobbying activities do not constitute a substantial part of their overall activities. The problem is with the applicable test: given all the facts and circumstances, do a particular church's lobbying activities make up a substantial part of their overall activities and exenditures? This test gives huge churches like the Mormon and Catholic churches too much leeway to engage in crap like Prop 8. Though these churches put huge amounts of money and effort into promoting Prop 8, the money and effort they provided is miniscule in relation to their overall charitable activities and expenditures. So they get a pass, they keep their tax-exempt status, and Californians lose their civil rights, drip by drip.
Obviously, if we don't adopt a more realistic law regarding church lobbying activities, the huge conservative churches will reach a point where their tax advantaged income and sheer enormity allow them to exert influence in the political realm that will completely overpower the common people. Same sex couples are not the only Americans who stand to be crushed under the power of these churches if the laws don't change. Meanwhile the more politically active churches have been testing the Internal Revenue Service's resolve to even enforce the existing restrictions on their activities.
My proposal is to prohibit any lobbying or political activity by tax exempt organizations, period. In this country, money equals political power. The tax exemption gives huge churches political power completely out of proportion to their membership numbers, and subverts the democratic process.
Our weapons:
Now that we have a new administration and an even larger legislative majority, it is high time to prohibit political and lobbying activities by tax exempt organizations, period. On the upside, I think we will find a lot of allies in this fight among the tax exempt organizations themselves. Those who are not politically active have long feared that the political activities of the others may jeopardize the tax status of all these churches and charities. We may find allies in this fight that we never suspected.