Much more to the point while we’re at it… The tax-exempt status of religious institutions, which was a propitiating concession to begin with, and has become a wildly toxic anachronism. It is used to secrete insane profit and declare immunity from any civic responsibilities, while advocating some of the most damaging absolutist positions. Check out the Hasidic and Falun Gong communities in upstate New York for a start, and then look back at the effect of the more familiar evangelical and established churches. At least the institutions of higher learning have aspirations towards broader civic interests; not so the religious institutions that fall into the same tax-exempt category.