ABC-Univision Editor Wants to Tax “Bigoted” Churches

On Monday, Fusion senior editor Felix Salmon echoed New York Times writer Mark Oppenheimer’s call for the end of the tax exemption of religious institutions, but took it one step further: he called for the specific targeting of churches that “remain steadfastly bigoted on the subject” of same-sex “marriage.” Salmon contended on Fusion.net that “if your organization does not support the right of gay men and women to marry, then the government should be very clear that you’re in the wrong. And it should certainly not bend over backwards to give you the privilege of tax exemption.”

The former Reuters financial blogger, who left in 2014 to work for Fusion (a joint project between ABC and Univision), began his article, “Does your church ban gay marriage? Then it should start paying taxes,” by underlining that “now that the US government formally recognizes marriage equality as a fundamental right, it really shouldn’t skew the tax code so as to give millions of dollars in tax breaks to groups which remain steadfastly bigoted on the subject. I’m talking, of course, about churches.”