'We're all paying for the special privileges afforded to religion. Your taxes and mine have to be higher to make up the revenue shortfall that the government isn't taking in because these huge, wealthy churches don't pay their own way.

By some estimates, the property tax exemption alone removes $100 billion in property from U.S. tax rolls. (And it's not just the big churches where that exemption bites: According to authors like Sikivu Hutchinson, the proliferation of small storefront churches is a major contributor to poverty and societal dysfunction in poor communities, since these churches remove valuable commercial property from the tax base and ensure that local governments remain cash-strapped and unable to provide basic services.)

Just about the only restriction that churches have to abide by in return is that they can't endorse political candidates -- and even this trivial, easily evaded prohibition is routinely and flagrantly violated by the religious right.'

Read more: How We All Pay For the Huge Tax Privileges Granted to Religion -- It's Time to Tax the Church