Reply #6: A quote from Gore Vidal:

[Mist]

“The tax exemptions for the revenues of all the churches from the Baptists to the equally absurd—and mischievous—Scientologists must be removed.
“ The original gentlemen’s agreement between Church and State was that We the People (the State) will in no way help or hinder any religion while, absently, observing that as religion is “a good thing,” the little church on Elm Street won’t have to pay a property tax. No one envisaged that the most valuable real estate at the heart of most of our old cities would be tax-exempt, as churches and temples and orgone boxes increased their holdings and portfolios. The quo for this huge quid
was that religion would stay out of politics and not impose its superstitions on Us the People. The agreement broke down years ago. The scandalous career of the Reverend Presidential Candidate Pat Robertson is a paradigm."
From Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, p.145