Canadian Chat → Re: GTA is Full of Them - Another "My Rights Are More Impor

The Income Tax Act gives recognized fairy tale religious believers a MORE than generous way of funding and having Neverland places of worship on backs of those who don't contribute to such endeavours. That strikes me as a more than fair 'bargain' (tradeoff of competing rights).

So, not only do you not understand religion, you don't understand law. Glad we sorted that out.

Your argument is based in bigotry and wildly off-topic. Your comments will likely get this thread locked.

The issue is not what YOU believe in religion. The issue is the religious freedoms of one conflicting with the gender equality of another; NOT what you believe religion is or it's funding questions.

Please stay on-topic or go hijack someone else's thread.

This selection of text made me burst out with laughter. Seriously, this quote block is hilarious! Thanks for that.

The original story, and as a result this thread, revolve around religious belief, the practice of that belief, and the effect those beliefs have on others. That is the ultimate topic since the barber refused - on religious grounds - to cut the woman's hair.

If you want to take a side, take the side of the woman. Last I heard, Canada is comprised of about 50% women.
I would take umbrage with ANY religious group of any size and popularity whose theology treats half the members of its society with anything other than dignity, respect, and full participatory rights in that society.

Yes, minority & religious rights are important and must be respected but unless you want a country, any country, to devolve into a theocracy, then religion is best practiced at home and in places of worship.

What would your view be if this occurred:
A Jew/Protestant/Catholic walks into a Muslim barbershop, asks for a haircut, and is denied because he's an 'infidel'?
What if the 'infidel' was a woman? Does that make it any more justifiable?

And no, this isn't YOUR thread - so I really don't have to go away.

This is like the story a while ago that some muslim cabbies would not take a passenger with a dog (no matter how small or large) because in their religion dogs are "unclean".

There's a reason that most of the muslim world is in the shape its in and the people are generally laughed at...

That is simply not true. You don't have much understanding of the tax codes which apply to religious groups.

I thought churches don't pay property taxes? Sales taxes in some provinces?

You and I, if we are fined by a court and have to sell say 1000 shares of Apple stock today to pay the fine, and our ACB is $8/share -- well we first have to pay our capital gains tax on the stock sale price (today $525/share) less $8 and then pay the fine. Which makes it necessary to sell more stock than is required to simply pay the fine.

On the other hand, a religious body doesn't pay capital gains tax when they sell off assets which have greatly appreciated over the years in order to pay damages in pedophilia cases.

That presumes the religious body owns shares in any company at all.

Only on spaces for public worship. They are assessed, however. Otherwise, yes. And yes, churches pay all sales taxes but can request (if they have the BN from the CRA) a rebate.

You'd be surprised at the value and breadth of the holding on many religious institutions (I'm not talking about individual congregations). I used to sell fixed income products to all manner of religious and other government & non-government tax-exempt institutions as part of my job, and help them mathematically model their portfolios.

I am well aware of a number of denominational portfolios. I'm on the Finance and Investment Committee of one denominational group. Right now they are not heavily in equities. Lots of cash sitting there in short term instruments.