This is not a joke. And here’s the worst part. I think Mike Franken, the Democrat challenging U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley,  just said what the left absolutely intends to do.

The left clearly believes that anything that needs to be done should be done by government fiat (or executive order.) So there’s absolutely no reason to believe that they would exempt religion from this perspective. They believe tolerance and inclusion to be the ultimate good and if they have to “club” that into you, so be it.

According to the Iowa Standard, Franken was asked about homosexuals and religion. The question was a little broad in that it asked about churches that do not allow homosexuals in. But Franken bypasses the limits of the question pretty quick and what he said should frighten you.

“That was the official position of the church,” Franken said. “This is a belief system in America — if a church has those perspectives and it’s part of their acknowledged perspectives, to me, I would take away their tax exemptions and I would use that as a club to ensure that religious understanding, tolerance, etc. is based on basic human rights and not a distortion of the literature of your faith.”

Franken continued:

“As a church, as an institution of religion — whatever it is…as a place of, if you have restrictions on your membership and restrictions even on gender on who can be in what office, uh restrictions placed upon, um, color of skin on whether you can be in a particular religion, that is a tax-exempt organization, I think that deserves inquiry from a federal perspective,” he said. “It’s stretching the issue, but you know, I have a broad perspective internationally and you just don’t see this in other religions.”

That would seem to indicate that the Catholic Church couldn’t have an all male priesthood without losing its tax exemption. This would also indicate that Catholic schools couldn’t hire and fire for mission and would be forced to hire teachers and administrators in public same-sex relationships or transgender people.

This perspective is not an oddity any more. This is coming. Right now. They will hamper the Church’s charitable efforts and they will shut down Catholic schools. All based on tolerance.