Texas: Unitarian-Universalism Not a Religion

You have probably heard of the Unitarian-Universalist church. They have organizations in every state and churches in most communities. They have roots going back hundreds of years and some of America’s most prominent leaders have belonged to it. In Texas, however, they no long qualify as a religion because they don’t require members to believe in God.

The Kansas City Star reports:

[A]ccording to the office of Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a Texas Unitarian church isn't really a religious organization - at least for tax purposes. Its reasoning: The organization "does not have one system of belief." Never before - not in this state nor any other - has a government agency denied Unitarians tax-exempt status because of the group's religious philosophy, church officials say. ... Since Strayhorn took over in January 1999, the comptroller's office has denied religious tax-exempt status to 17 groups and granted them to more than 1,000, according to records obtained by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Although there are exceptions, the lion's share of approvals have gone to groups that appear to have relatively traditional faiths, records show. But of the denials, at least a fourth include less traditional groups. In addition to the Denison Unitarian church, the rejected groups include a Carrollton, Texas, group of atheists and agnostics, a New Age group in Bastrop, Texas, and the Whispering Star Clan/Temple of Ancient Wisdom, an organization of witches in Copperas Cove, Texas. ... Those who oppose the comptroller's "God, gods or supreme being" test say that it can discriminate against legitimate faiths. For example, applying that standard could disqualify Buddhism because it does not mandate belief in a supreme being, critics say.

Who is Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn? Aside from being the mother of Scott McClellan, Press Secretary to President George W. Bush, and Dr. Mark McClellan, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, she is also the same person who is fighting tooth-and-nail to deny tax-exempt status to the Ethical Culture Fellowship of Austin.

As Respectful of Otters notes:

I suppose it's true that the comptroller of Texas needs to be on guard against fake religions made up to take advantage of tax-exempt status. But if I were trying to draw the line, I don't think I'd worry about a religious group that has a national association of more than a thousand congregations, historical roots hundreds of years old, and a list of famous members that reads like Who's Who in American History: John and Abigail Adams, Ethan Allen, John C. Calhoun, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Paul Revere, Daniel Webster, Horace Greeley, Louisa May Alcott, P.T. Barnum, Fannie Farmer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry David Thoreau, Clara Barton, Susan B. Anthony, Julia Ward Howe, Linus Pauling, Carl Sandburg, Sylvia Plath, Christopher Reeve, Buckminster Fuller, e.e. cummings, Elliot L. Richardson, Adlai Stevenson, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut...

While Ethical Culture and Unitarian-Universalist groups are being denied the status of religion, the Strayhorn seems to have no problem with giving tax-exempt status to the Church of Scientology. Does that make sense? Maybe it does in Texas, in which case I’m very glad that I don’t live in Texas. There must be something in the air or the water that causes insanity.

Read More:

• Secularism 101
• Separation of Church and State 101
• Religious Right
• Christian Nationalism
• Religious Intolerance & Bigotry
• Evangelicalism