Sales tax exemption on Bibles ends in Georgia

There was an interesting story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution yesterday about a court ruling that strikes down an old state law that kept purchases of Bibles tax-exempt.

A federal judge in Atlanta has struck down an old state law that lets people buy the Bible without paying sales taxes.

The sales tax exemption treats some religious and philosophical works more favorably than others, U.S. District Judge Richard Story ruled Monday.

As I read the entire article, I thought that this ruling seemed quite fair but that there would be some who would claim that this is yet more proof of anti-Christian bias. Boy, was I right.

Sadie Fields, state chairman of the Christian Coalition of Georgia, denounced the decision.

"It does not reflect the will of the people in Georgia," she said. "I think it's an outrage."

She also said she would oppose expanding the sales tax exemption to other spiritual philosophies. "I don't see any comparison between Scripture and some metaphysical nonsense," she said.

Why is this an outrage? Does Sadie think that Christianity should be favored above other religions by the government? I find Sadie Field's statement here highly hypocritical. The Christian Coalition often comes out against laws that involve a greater involvement by the government into everyday life. Yet here they have no problem with government involvement that favors them.

This gets to the root of my problem with the Christian Coalition. They so often are coming out in favor of government-mandated recognitions of Christianity such as prayer in school or Bible classes in public schools. While I do think that the so-called "separation of church and state" isn't as strict as the ACLU would make it out to be, likewise I think the Christian Coalition goes too far the other way.

I think that Sadie's statement would be more correct if she had said "The Christian Coalition of Georgia does not reflect the will of the people in Georgia". They certainly don't reflect the view of this evangelical Christian in Georgia.

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