Wiccans challenge tax exemption

TALLAHASSEE (FBW) — The Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments June 9 in a case challenging the state’s sales tax exemption for religious publications, including non-profit newspapers like Florida Baptist Witness, Bibles and other religious items.

The challenge to the sales tax exemption was brought by the Wiccan Religious Cooperative of Florida, claiming the exemption violates the constitutional requirement of separation between church and state.

The Witness joined The Florida Catholic, a statewide newspaper of Catholics in the Sunshine State, in filing a friend-of-the-court brief before the Supreme Court, and Kevin Shaughnessy, the attorney representing the Witness and Catholic, argued the case before the high court, along with Florida’s Deputy Solicitor General James McKee.

Shaughnessy and McKee argued the Wiccans did not have legal standing to bring the lawsuit, since they are themselves beneficiaries of the exemption and that the exemption is constitutionally sound because the state provides similar exemptions for many other kinds of non-religious publications.

“This particular type of exemption is so blatantly unconstitutional and such an obvious abuse of the state’s power that the court must step in and correct it,” Wiccan attorney Heather Morcroft countered, according to the Associated Press.

The Florida Supreme Court will rule later on the case.

For more about the case, see April 6 editorial, “Florida Baptist Witness before the Florida Supreme Court — and why it matters to you,” available online at www.FloridaBaptistWitness.com.