raisedbyignorance wrote:
John_Browning wrote:
Extremely few churches are involved in politics. Even big churches usually don't have enough wiggle room in their budget for politics. Even if they are moving millions, there's more pressing things for the money to go to. Contrary to popular belief, being a pastor (as opposed to a TV con-artist) is not a form of venture capitalism.
I find that really hard to believe. Otherwise we wouldn't have such ridiculous organizations such as NOM, Focus on the Family, or pretty much every so-called Marriage or Family organization that devotes far too much time to fighting political issues such as gay marriage and abortion. Even the Mormon church was known to put in a ton of money to ensure the passing of Prop 8. Rest assured, if a church or religious organization is strongly against something politically, they will put a ton of money into whatever campaign is fighting it.
Those are non-profits, but they are not churches. The political money tends to come from people who go to church, but without the political funding going through the church. While the mormons are a notable exception, political money tends to make it's way to PACs in a grassroots way. Churches tend to be made up of fairly like minded people who often fund conservative political causes, and they talk amongst themselves and decide to send money to causes apart from their contributions to their church. The only tricky part is that churches frequently support humanitarian causes, and those can't always be cleanly separated from politics, but that's usually not the fault of the humanitarian groups- the government does a stellar job of turning everything it touches into crap!
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"Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars."
- Unknown
"A fear of weapons is a sign of ret*d sexual and emotional maturity."
-Sigmund Freud