Who wants to pay for churches? Not me!

The Church of England (CofE) is using the popular 10 Downing Street e-petitions web site to try and get the government to get tax payers to pay for repairs to church buildings. I say “piss off, godboy”.

Their petition is as follows:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Arrange for the cost of repairs to C of E church buildings to be reimbursed to help preserve our archeological & historic heritage for the future.

Churches are a valuable part of our heritage and a major tourist attraction, yet the funding of repairs is left to the parish in which the building is situated. Thus the cost of maintaining a national asset is left to the minority. This is grossly unfair and should be rectified.

Hiding behind heritage and tradition (the last true bastions of religious nuttery in a mostly secular society) they are seeking to get the government (i.e. us tax payers) to pay for the maintenance of the buildings owned by a single religious sect. These buildings, while being part of the history of Britain, are not owned by the state, nor by the populace at large — they are private buildings, owned by a sect that currently manages in the region of £5 billion in assets.

My problem lies with this statement: Thus the cost of maintaining a national asset is left to the minority. This is grossly unfair and should be rectified. My emphasis. These buildings are not a national asset — they are a private asset, belonging to a what is essentially a private club. Therefore, it is right that the members of this club should be the ones to pay for any repairs or maintenance it requires.

Although the above page of the CofE web site states:

The Church Commissioners own some 125,000 acres of agricultural land. They are conscious of their duty as a long-established landlord and one of the country’s largest landowners. Financial criteria play a key role in their decisions about sales and re-lettings, but they recognize the importance of good landlord and tenant relationships

they still abdicate responsibility to others wherever they can, as demonstrated by a recent case where they used an ancient law to force a couple to pay for the renovations to their church.

[G]ood landlord and tenant relationships, my arse!

There is, however, a counter petition in place, with the aim of petition[ing] the Prime Minister to refuse to reimburse the Church of England with public funds for repairs or maintenance to their own, private buildings.

The Church of England is petitioning the government to reimburse it for the cost of repairs to church property under the guise of historical heritage. Should the church wish to maintain buildings it owns, it should somehow raise the funds itself, especially considering it currently owns approx. £5billion in assets.

Please add your name to the counter petition (UK residents/citizens only). I don’t know about you, but I don’t fancy paying for the repairs to overly ostentatious buildings that I have no access to. If the church decides to donate these buildings to the state, however, I wouldn’t have a problem with it — they’d then become truly public buildings, open to all.

They god-botherers currently have over 7,000 signatories. We have 7, and need a hell of a lot more.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ChurchPay4Church/

And if you’re still in the petitioning mood after this, there are also a few others that you might be interested in, which can be found in the ‘petitions’ links to the right/below this article.

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