Item Detail
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32312
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1
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12
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English
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Revoke Its Exemption : Pushing for Change in the Mormon Church
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Journal of Mormon History
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2021
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47
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4
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Champaign, IL
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University of Illinois Press
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52-83
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"In this article, I trace the development and normalization of tax exemption as a tool to attempt to pressure the Mormon Church to change. This history began in the early 1970s and was deployed in response to the church’s ban on priesthood and temple attendance for Black Mormons, the church’s opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, and its opposition to same-sex marriage.
"I trace this rhetorical tool to the determination of the IRS in the early 1970s that racially discriminatory private schools did not qualify for tax exemption. While this may have caused concern to the Mormon Church, there is very little evidence that critics of the church’s racial exclusion challenged its tax exemption, substantively or rhetorically, until after the church had eliminated the restriction; subsequent activists adopted the tool, though. Some proponents of the Equal Rights Amendment argued that the Mormon Church’s active opposition should disqualify it from being exempt. As the church argued against same-sex marriage, rhetorical attacks on its tax exemption became de rigueur. Civil rights activists’ demands that the IRS revoke the Mormon Church’s tax exemption are unfounded from a legal perspective but have significant rhetorical power. They reflect a general view of the appropriate place of religion in public and the value of tax exemption as an official state endorsement of churches." [Author] -
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When Race, Religion and Sport Collide : Black Athletes at BYU and Beyond
Writing 'Mormonism's Negro Doctrine : An Historical Overview' (1973) : Context and Reflections, 1998