Last Monday’s Washington Post article on the conflict between the local government and church leaders in Prince William County is a cautionary tale about a growing trend in church-state relationships nationwide. Well-meaning local officials, facing financial shortfalls and seeking to continue funding for essential services, are turning to their tax departments to identify new streams of revenue. Tax officials, in turn, are looking for quick and easy ways to provide this income.
To them the problem and the solution are simple and obvious:
- The problem: growing faith communities are taking properties off the tax roles.
- The solution: declare as taxable portions of faith community’s properties not exclusively used for religious purposes.
Unfortunately, this is the kind of difficult problem to which H. L. Mencken was referring when he said, “For every complex problem there is a clear and simple answer…clear, simple, and wrong.”
Or in this case, unconstitutional.
My colleague Sabir Rahman and I are faith community leaders in Montgomery County who serve as co-chair's of the Religious Land Use Working Group of County Executive Isiah Leggett's Montgomery County Interfaith Advisory Council. The purpose of our working group is to advise the county on the impact of county land use and property taxation policies on the faith communities of Montgomery Council.
In the article, Prince William County Attorney Angela Lemmon Horan states that county tax assessors should not be in the business of defining religious use. We find this ironic, because it shows that many tax department officials sense that there are first amendment issues at stake in confrontations like this one.
We agree wholeheartedly with Horan that local government officials defining what is and what is not a “religious use” would be a clear violation of the first amendment. However, we totally disagree with her application of the principle: that only religious buildings (and perhaps their parking lots) may be considered evidence of religious use, and we believe it to be a serious misapplication of first amendment principles.
A key issue in resolving this conflict like these is “burden of proof.” Should local faith community’s properties be considered taxable unless proven otherwise (the prevailing local government opinion)? Or should a faith community’s claims of religious use of their property be upheld unless local government can prove otherwise with a preponderance of evidence (the position of faith communities).
Horan’s statement notwithstanding, we believe the former approach more deeply entangles local governments in the affairs of faith communities than is constitutionally permissible. A near-universal, fundamental tenet of all religious faiths is that the presence of God – and thus worship and service of God – is not contained by any human-made building (even atheists believe that believers believe this). It does not take a legal scholar to realize that the legal theory used by Horan and others to justify their “taxable until proven otherwise approach” violates this common sense understanding of religious use.
As the article rightly states, neither side in these disputes believes that for-profit ventures on faith community properties should go untaxed. Were a faith community to lease a portion of its property to a Starbucks, built and rented apartments, or even, as is often the case, rented out the rectory, it would be only reasonable and just for the faith community to pay property taxes on the portion of land used for profit. This is the kind common sense, reasonable-person approach is what we believe is needed is needed to resolve these conflicts.
The sad and ironic aspect to this story is that local governments and church in many ways are natural allies. Both seek the common good of the people and the communities they serve. Both seek to care for creation and seek sustainable use of the environment. We can do so much when we work together. It is a shame local governments allow competition for limited resources to lead them down the path to thinking of faith communities as competitors. Sadder still is that in this kind of case federal courts have generally found in favor of faith communities, IF the faith communities have the resources to survive that long. And no matter who wins and loses the partnership between local government and faith communities is shattered for generations.
Montgomery County is not immune to the fiscal pressures facing other counties, nor to the temptation to maintain their income base through the "creative" and agressive use of their property taxation and land use powers in ways that squeeze a little more income from faith communities. It can easily seem like the low-hanging fruit on the well-beaten path, at least in the short run.
But as co-chairs of the Religious Land Use Working Group of the Montgomery County Interfaith Advisory Council, we hope and pray that our County will not be seduced by that path that has captured Prince William and so many other local governments around the country: to trade away the good will of their faith community partners for what is, for the county, a merely incremental increase in tax revenue, but which for faith communities represents the individual offerings of their members, given to the glory of God, and perhaps even the difference between continuing existence and throwing in the towel.
We presented this case recently to County Executive Isiah Leggett at an interfaith gathering of 70-plus Montgomery County clergy and received a thoughtful and favorable response. We appreciate his consideration and will continue to work with County officials to ensure that, in its relationship with its faith community partners, Montgomery County will take “the road less traveled,” as Robert Frost called it, and that it will make all the difference.
Sabir A. Rahman & Kenneth W. Howard
Co-Chairs, Religious Land Use Working Group
Montgomer County Interfaith Advisory Council
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