Is it the proper role of government to encourage sectarian doctrines by giving tax exemptions on the sale of Bible or other religious texts? Courts in two states declare the practice to be unconstitutional.

n the wake of a similar decision in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court has ruled that a sales tax exemption for Bibles and other religious publications is unconstitutional. The tax prohibition on Bibles, the Koran, Book of Mormon and similar books has been in effect since 1956. Wednesday's ruling upheld a 1997 Commonwealth Court decision which declared that the state acted improperly in making religious publications tax-exempt while taxing other writings.

   Justice Sandra Schultz Newman wrote that the state policy displays a "preference for communication of religious messages." The jurists noted their reliance on a similar case from Texas, TEXAS MONTHLY, INC. v. BULLOCK; in that dispute, the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun opined that the government could exempt religious publications from taxes, but only if it did the same for "philosophical literature distributed by nonreligious organizations devoted to such matters of conscience as life and death, good and evil, being and nonbeing, right and wrong."

   The administration of Governor Tom Ridge decided in May, 1997 to appeal the lower Commonwealth Court ruling. In a press release, the governor had declared, "It is entirely appropriate for a state to encourage religion in our communities by exempting religious publications from the sales tax... We hope the Supreme Court will agree with this common-sense proposition."

   Earlier this month, the Rhode Island State Supreme Court struck down a state law that provided tax breaks on the sales of Bibles and other "canonized scriptures." The state Attorney General's office justified the tax policy, saying that it would "advance and encourage moral and intellectual diversity in the state." Defending the government's suspect position, Assistant State Attorney General Rebecca Partington argued that the exemption did not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment, and that enforcing equal taxes meant that, "The tax administrator would have to make sure the parish bookstore is collecting a sales tax and would have to audit the church bookstore."

   Writing for the majority, Justice Robert Flanders cited the 1987 U.S. Supreme Court case ARKANSAS WRITERS' PROJECT, INC. v. RAGLAND, that "regulations which permit the Government to discriminate on the basis of content of the message cannot be tolerated under the First Amendment." Flanders noted that the Rhode Island tax statute operated "in such a way that a given publication's tax status depends entirely on its content..."

   Articles in Pennsylvania newspaper portrayed a mixed reaction on the part of religious bookstore owners to Wednesday's ruling. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quoted one Christian book store manager who declared, "Especially with the school shootings out in Colorado, we should be doing everything we can to think about religion, instead of stirring up controversy over religion. He admitted, though, that the tax on Bibles "will not deter his customers," and that a $40 purchase price on a Bible would come to $42.80 with the sales tax.

   The Pennsylvania challenge began six years ago with a lawsuit filed on behalf of a Pittsburgh publisher, Felice Newman, and Steven Zupcic. Zupcic had purchased several books at a local store in 1993, and noticed that some of the works were taxed, and others were not; he considered that discriminatory. According to the Post-Gazette, the tax was levied on the Koran and Haggadah, but not the Bible. The American Civil Liberties Union took the case.

   Ms. Newman, now a San Francisco-based publisher noted, "If you don't have to pay sales tax on the Bible, then why should you have to pay sales tax on 'Best Lesbian erotica 1999'? Who gets to decide that the Bible is sacred but a book on sexual spirituality is not?" She added, "Anytime you allow civil government to meddle in matters of content of literature, you are creating a precedent for censorship in the future. That is certainly possible in our society, where there is a history of criminalizing erotic materials..."

   The State of Pennsylvania could enjoyed increased revenues of about $900.000 per year by not exempting religious books from the sales tax. There is no word yet on whether the Ridge administration will order an appeal on the case to the United States Supreme Court.

[text only]