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Question: Did President Jimmy Carter threaten the Church's tax-exempt status because of their policy on blacks and the priesthood?
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Question: Did President Jimmy Carter threaten the Church's tax-exempt status because of their policy on blacks and the priesthood?
The allegation that the LDS church's tax-free status was threatened is false
A claim that the federal government had threatened to revoke the Church's tax-exempt status back in 1978 was made by a woman named Kathy Erickson in a letter to the Salt Lake Tribune on March 11, 2001. Erickson stated,
What’s done is done. There no longer is any prejudice against blacks in the Mormon church, the power of money took care of that. Back in 1978 the federal government informed the LDS Church that unless it allowed blacks full membership (including the priesthood) they would have to cease calling themselves a non-profit organization and start paying income taxes. On $16.5 million a day in tithing alone that’s a lot of tax monies that could be better used in building up the Kingdom of God.
The church immediately saw the error of its ways and the brethren appealed to God for a revelation; it came quickly. God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform, and today The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has nothing but love for all races of people on Earth.”[1]
A representative of the Church Public Affairs department responded with a letter of their own:
Salt Lake Tribune public forum Distorted History Thursday, April 5, 2001
It's one thing to distort history, quite another to invent it. Kathy Erickson (Forum, March 11) claims that the federal government threatened The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with its tax-exempt status in 1978 because of the church's position regarding blacks and the priesthood.
We state categorically that the federal government made no such threat in 1978 or at any other time. The decision to extend the blessings of the priesthood to all worthy males had nothing to do with federal tax policy or any other secular law. In the absence of proof, we conclude that Ms. Erickson is seriously mistaken.
BRUCE L. OLSEN Public Affairs Department The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [2]
Did President Carter meet with President Spencer W. Kimball?
It is rumored in ex-Mormon circles that President Carter's White House diary indicated that he had a 21 minute meeting with President Kimball on March 11, 1977. One ex-Mormon on the Recovery from Mormonism message board even claimed to have located an "the actual photograph" of the meeting on LDS.org! [3] That photograph, however, is actually of a meeting in the Tabernacle on November 27, 1978.
President Kimball presents U.S. President Jimmy Carter with statue, Salt Lake Tabernacle, November 27, 1978. Photo located on https://www.lds.org/churchhistory/presidents/controllers/potcController.jsp?leader=12&topic=multimedia#
Notes