ATLANTA – The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia today praised a
decision by the United States District Court for the Northern District of
Georgia striking down two state sales and use tax exemptions. The
provisions that were overturned Thursday applied only to certain religious texts
and the court ruled that they were discriminatory on the basis of the content of
the speech.
“The state should not be in the business of picking and
choosing which religious groups and texts get a special tax exemption,” said
ACLU of Georgia staff counsel Maggie Garrett. “The First Amendment guarantees
that we are all allowed to express our views and that the government can’t tax
the views it disagrees with, but give tax breaks to those it likes.”
The ACLU
filed the case on behalf of Candace Apple, owner of the Phoenix & Dragon
bookstore, and Thomas Budlong, a customer. Apple and Budlong objected to the
Georgia law because it only applied to certain religious literature. For
example, when Budlong purchased the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu text, he was
taxed.
In response to the court decision, Apple stated, “I am glad that the
government will now treat all of my customers the same, regardless of whether
they are buying scripture from a well-recognized religion, sacred texts from a
lesser known religion, or philosophy texts to guide their lives.”
Budlong
added, “I’m very happy that the First Amendment won out and the state will now
treat all printed materials the same.”
The provisions in question were
O.C.G.A. §§ 48-8-3(16), which granted tax exemptions for “Holy Bibles,
testaments, and similar books commonly recognized as Holy Scripture,” and
(15)(a), which granted exemptions for “religious papers” when owned by religious
institutions. The District Court explained that “both exemptions express a
governmental preference for organized religious expression over spiritual,
philosophical, agnostic, atheistic, and other forms of self expression.”
In
1989, the United States Supreme Court struck down a nearly identical statute in
Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock. Since then, federal appellate courts and state
supreme courts in North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island
have followed suit.
A copy of the court order can be found online at: www.acluga.org/press.releases/0705/OrderSJ.pdf