Reply #90: Its not like that racket has stopped under the new administration either.

[glowing]

I live in near Clearwater, FL (work in Clearwater). We have a different sort of church that holds this city hostage; its Scientology. They own about 1/2 of downtown Clearwater. A place where businesses would normally pay a higher property tax rate; they pay nothing. AND because its a scam based on taking everyone's life and life's savings, along with sporting a few trendy movie stars, they have money. There isn't a mayor or city councilor or county anything that isn't approved by the Church of Scientology. We could actually sport an amazing downtown, just across from the beach, that featured shopping, movie theater, even a stage theater, museums, and nighttime activity (clubs/ bars/ dining). But the church has a lot of the land, and seem to be the preferred buyers when the city offers up land to purchase. Most people don't realize how much the church actually brings the city and the county down financially, and its something we don't mention to the tourists because they are rather freaky in their cult like appearance (always wearing dark blue or black dress pants, blue button down shirt, and a sweater when it gets colder). I assume most people just think there's a close by college that has a dress code or something... or maybe they don't really pay that much attention. The route to the beach now angles through Court St, which houses the Gov't buildings. So essentially, downtown is made up of the Courthouse and other Govt type buildings, The Church of Scientology, and a few high-rise condos and a spattering of local businesses here and there. The Church even owns the historic Ft Harrison Hotel... Seriously, who thought that was a good idea? I suppose they snuck in back in the day when Florida was less populated. I would have less problems with them if they just took their "base" and moved it away from prime real-estate and just maintained 1 church. The fact that they own so much; including the local politicians is really bad for the city. The downtown area could be an incredibly vibrant area that feeds into the tourist destination of the beach just across a rather short causeway. People who do venture into the area cannot believe that for nightlife they have to spend about $100.00 on a cab one way to get to any bars or nightclubs. Its only the people of Pinellas and Clearwater that are getting screwed. The downtown space is not being utilized for the biggest bang for the buck. The property taxes have to increase on residents and other businesses to pay for Govt throughout the rest of Clearwater and Pinellas. If downtown Clearwater didn't have so much land and development belonging to a church, other businesses would have built the downtown area up into a beach-side tourist attraction. There would be jobs downtown for people who live there, more money coming into the area, and probably more people actually coming in as their preferred vacationing spot because a city is literally so close the water's edge and just a 5 minute ride across a causeway/ bridge to get onto the beach. There's a trolly that crosses over the bridge and runs along the beach area. People could utilize both the downtown area and the beach in an easy fashion without having to drive and worry about parking. If its raining or a family is sporting a severe sunburn because they didn't realize how strong our Florida sun is compared to what it is in say Connecticut, having the option of a simple trip into downtown to shop or visit museums would make a tourists visit to the beach so much more pleasurable.

Sadly, I don't see this church losing its grip or land anytime soon. They have money. They have bought their representatives on both sides of the aisle. It wasn't too long ago that they were in the run off for an extra piece of vacant land that the city was selling off. I don't know who actually got the land. There's not a lot of news about them. The St. Pete Times did a story about them over a few spreads a while back... 2004/2005. They had maps of the downtown area and how much the church owned and how they controlled the elected officials. If an elected official had not received an endorsement from the church, the church would go down and dirty on the other candidates. It was a fascinating series. I was surprised to see how in depth it actually was. I'm sure some items had been left out, but it certainly looked like a racketeering enterprise to me. Perhaps, that becomes a way to take them out? Who knows. As far as the community, it would be best if they packed it up and took their cultish compound out of a downtown city. No other church has that much power or influence on a city that I know of in these modern times.

Anyway, churches altogether need to pay taxes. At the very least, they need to pay property tax for the land they are on, oftentimes having prime real-estate that costs the town or city more money from having a non-tax paying entity taking up valuable land space. AND absolutely no politician should be allowed to speak at a church or be endorsed by a church. In fact, a church should not be able to speak about any type of political issue what so ever. They are supposed to be in the business of helping and providing comfort to the soul; they should not be there to tell someone that something or someone is evil and is the Devil Incarnate. The only time they should venture into speaking of abortion or of someone being gay is if their parishioner comes to them and asks for prayer and guidance. Otherwise, they should not be allowed to talk about anything other than helping ease the soul. In fact, the money collected from taxes should sufficiently cover enough to provide programs for the poor, homeless, and down on their luck types of people throughout the United States. If they wish to take up an extra collection plate to help the homeless or what not, the money collected on a whole from every church across the United States, could go into a special account at the Federal level to be used and dispersed specifically for helping the poor and homeless, like paying for hotel room for a family or building affordable housing, or building homeless shelters that are actually dignifying (like a mini-apt with walls, doors, bathroom, and kitchen), and rehabilitation centers to help those that are addicted to drugs. Could you imagine how much money collected and directed to a fund specifically like that would be for America? Shoot, people who don't even go to church could choose to send money into a "Poverty Initiative Fund" that the Federal Govt could use throughout the United States. The agency running the funds would never have the money stolen from to pay for war or pet perks. It would be an addendum social agency that could positively begin addressing the issues of helping people. In fact, it could probably roll food stamp, WIC, welfare issues, social security, medicare, into one agency whose sole purpose is to address social issues for the poor, infirm, and elderly. I think the social issues are rather spread out. Housing under HUD, social security elsewhere, I'm not sure where welfare and food stamp programs end up. Putting all the social issues of helping people under one "roof" would create a more powerful entity, and having churches taxes going directly into the "social issues" agency would keep the program alive and powerful... Especially, if that's where their "power" as a church within the aspects of politics ends up. It would be very hard to call out "Welfare Queens" when the churches across America send their "tax donation" into the program to help the homeless and poor. How could these so-called fundie Republicans NOT support the agency where the church is directing funds? They would have to care for the innocent people that they normally slash and burn.