Zedekiah Sunday

Yesterday was "Pulpit Freedom Sunday," a publicity stunt coordinated by the Persecuted Hegemon Legal Defense Fund, also known as the Alliance Defense Fund.

The ADF began as a cooperative program launched by several of the leading members of the religious right, including James Dobson and Pat Robertson. It's two-part mission is to: 1) Raise lots and lots of direct-mail money by telling scary stories about the ACLU and convincing gullible Christians that their donations are the only thing stopping mass arrests by the homo-humanist Gestapo; and 2) Boost the self-esteem of evangelical Christians by insisting that they have every right to feel aggrieved and unappreciated.

Anyway, Pulpit Freedom Sunday is intended to create a court challenge to the law that says you can't have your cake and eat it too. The cake, in this case, being the tax-exempt status enjoyed by churches. Churches don't have to pay taxes, and contributions to churches are tax deductible. Along with that tax-exempt status comes the agreement that churches will not engage in direct, partisan political activity or official endorsements of political candidates.

ADF wants both. They want churches to be able to endorse candidates and engage in partisan politics and to remain tax-exempt while doing so.

That situation would, of course, be awesome for those churches -- a cash bonanza like nothing the world has ever seen.

Think about it. The Obama and McCain campaigns have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, plus hundreds of millions more for the Democratic and Republican national committees, the state committees, the House and Senate re-election committees, the PACs and all the other candidates at every level of government. That's a multibillion-dollar pot of money.

All of those groups and candidates have to raise money without being able to promise their donors a tax-deduction in exchange for their contribution. Now imagine those donors had a tax-deductible alternative. Imagine they could instead give this money to the churches in ADF's network and take a tax deduction, knowing that the churches would simply be rechanneling the money to the same campaigns and committees. In exchange for this laundering service, the churches could skim a tiny percentage of the contributions. Cha-ching! It'd be like a license to print money.

That's what the Alliance Defense Fund is shooting for.

They can't come right out and say as much, of course, so instead they're trying to frame this as a free speech issue. As the Associated Press notes, churches already enjoy freedom of speech when it comes to elections and political campaigns:

Under the IRS code, churches can distribute voter guides, run voter-registration drives, hold forums on public policy and invite politicians to speak [to] their congregations.

None of those activities threaten a church's tax-exempt status, but that's not good enough for the ADF. Thus, in the hopes of creating a test-case to challenge and try to change existing law, the group sponsored yesterday's Pulpit Freedom Sunday. Pastors at some 33 churches across the country endorsed Republican John McCain from the pulpit. ADF figures that will prompt an IRS investigation that they hope to fight all the way to the Supreme Court.

But one political scholar suggested that the legal system may not uphold a challenge to the IRS restriction. If a lawsuit were to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices would probably side with the government over the church, said Christopher Wolfe, an emeritus professor of political science at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

"I think the Supreme Court will say, 'Listen, if you want to electioneer, fine, but then you have no right to the tax exemption,'" he said. "I don't think the law will go away."

Prof. Wolfe is right and the ADF knows this, but keep in mind what the ADF is really all about. It's a "legal defense fund" only to the extent that posing as such provides fertile ground for its real mission: direct-mail fundraising.

ADF is hoping its challenge will take years to work its way through the courts -- long, lucrative years during which they can send out millions of direct-mail solicitations warning their marks that "the IRS is trying to take away your tax exemption" and that the only way to save churches is to donate to ADF.

Sleazy, but time-tested.

Bonus link: Martin Marty on Pulpit Freedom Sunday.

Comments

[Alexandra Erin]

Oh, no, you've got it all wrong... they just want to be able to "render unto Caesar", just like it says in the Bible.

[daniel]

Sorry I'm dense, but what's the reference to Zedekiah?

[pharoute]

So all the IRS has to do is go "Fine, donations are only tax-deductible for the donor, to the receiver it's taxable income"
Sounds good to me...

[practicallyevil]

Sorry I'm dense, but what's the reference to Zedekiah?

Zedekiah was the last king of Judah, who lead a rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar, resulting in the siege of Jerusalem, which while protracted, visited a host of woes upon the citizens of Jerusalem. When the Babylonians succeeded in the siege, Zedekiah left the citizens of Jerusalem to their fate and tried to run, even though he was the one who picked the fight. It didn't end well for him.

Basically the analogy is that the church leaders are leading there followers into a fight they know they will lose for a short term gain.

[Martha]

What are the odds of the churches in question actually losing their tax exempt status - preferably for several years?

'Cause that would be awesome.

[Emma]

I should probably wait for an Open Thread but Fox News just picked this up and this should hit more of the blogosphere before it comes out on some ridiculous ass-backwards spin network.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/28/203016/697/536/613742

[Reynard]

Posted by Martha: What are the odds of the churches in question actually losing their tax exempt status - preferably for several years?

'Cause that would be awesome.

The problem is that, to a Christian, martyrdom is "awesome" too. And these churches would simply become (and be quite *proud* of being) martyrs for the cause of the Persecuted Hegemony. Not quite as "awesome" sounding now, is it...

[Donalbain]

Bad link!
The link in the story is all virusy and nasty, do NOT click! Do NOT click!

[Praline]

Interesting fact: in the run-up to the last elections, the Guardian, the UK's most left-leaning major broadsheet, pointed out that America had an effect on the rest of us - true, just look at our banks staggering left and right - but that it was illegal for foreigners to contribute to campaigns. So, it suggested, if anyone had a strong preference for either side, there were charities you could donate to that would basically spend the money in support of one party or another, as different parties would be much more sympathetic to their agendas. If you wanted the Democrats to win, they suggested you donate to the NAACP (who are still e-mailing me with updates). If you wanted the Republicans - highly doubtful for a Guardian reader, but they were making a point of neutrality - they advised you donate to the Christian Coalition.

[Jake]

Okay, some things I don't get:
1) Long, drawn-out legal battles are expensive. Wouldn't getting a lot of money from suckers and then spending it on the legal battle you manufactured in order to get the money have the same net result as just not having the legal battle and not getting the money? Or is the number of fleece-able morons so large, and their pockets so deep, that you can do much better than just paying for the battle. Because that fact would be sad all by itself.

2) This whole can't-endorse-a-politician thing isn't unique to churches, is it? I'm not American, but I understood that American law forbade *any* tax-exempt not-for-profit from making political endorsements, right? So there is simply no way this is religious persecution of any sort.

3) I don't understand why losing the tax-exempt status would be so bad for the churces in question. I mean, in your scenario people donate to political campaigns through the church, thereby allowing the churches to skim a little off the top, and they get to deduct the contributions. But if the above-mentioned fleece-able morons are really willing to empty their pockets for their churches every time the church says boo, which is what appears to be the case, then it seems likely that they'd be happy to donate to campaigns through their churches even if nobody was getting a tax cut, and the churches would have enough skimmed off the top to more than make up for the taxes they're having to pay.

[Elmo]

It would make ever so much more sense to drop the tax exemption for churches.

[Brett]

The real riot, although very unlikely, would be if the Supreme Court ended up invalidating tax exemptions for ALL churches because of this. As if, they'll probably just uphold the IRS law, which means that the ADF gets a potent fund-raising tool, these churches end up screwed with egg on their faces (and the real victims are their congregants), and the IRS gets more dinero.

[Tonio]

It would make ever so much more sense to drop the tax exemption for churches.

While that would be a good idea in principle, I don't want to get the government involved in determining what constitutes a religious organization. Is the government doing that already with the tax-exempt status, or does it simply lump all the religious organizations into the general category of non-profit organizations?

[Narya]

The prohibition certainly applies to non-profits (like the one for which I work) that get federal funding--we cannot have bumper stickers, or pins, or anything at all, anywhere in our offices or on our persons, that supports a candidate. It may be tied to tax-exempt status, as well, but the federal funding thing is enough to do it for us. Given that many non-profits have some kind of federal or state money in there somewhere, that alone might do it, but I think the exemption/restriction does also apply to non-profits generally.

Personally, the tax-exemption for churches has always bugged me. I'm an atheist, and this exemption functions as a handout to religions. I don't mind the exemption for non-profits that are providing services to people--so, for example, the service arms of churches would still qualify--but the general exemption bugs me. I realize it's a non-starter, of course.

[Narya]

BTW, Tonio, the government is ALREADY in that conversation--witness the massive effort that Scientology put forth to get qualified as a religion and therefore qualify for tax-exempt status. IIRC, their efforts included getting people hired by the IRS, moving up the ranks, etc. All on behalf of a belief system that LR Hubbard invented on a bet.

[Tonio]

BTW, Tonio, the government is ALREADY in that conversation

Yes, and I'm not sure that it needs to be. Surely the problem of Scientology could have been handled by a more general determination of whether the group qualifies for non-profit status.

[hapax]

Praline: America had an effect on the rest of us - true, just look at our banks staggering left and right -

With all due respect, Praline, I don't think you can blame the problems of British banks ENTIRELY on the U.S. Witness the collapse of the building societies, for example.

FWIW, I am scarcely an atheist, and a diehard prop of an institutional church, and I don't think religions qua religions) should get tax-exempt status either. (I don't think it would be particularly difficult to separate out financially distinct service organizations; most public libraries have them, for example)

[Tonio]

If the tax exemption were lifted, would some religious organizations get around this by transferring their assets into affiliated non-profits that exist only on paper, or to real affiliated non-profits that have hidden religious objectives?

[Froborr]

Both secular non-profit charities and religious organizations get tax-exempt status as long as they do not endorse candidates or engage in direct lobbying. Donations to the ACLU, for example, are not deductible.

The difference is that there's no requirement that a religious organization be nonprofit, as witness Scientology.

I think that is a form of pro-religious discrimination; religious organizations should not be covered by separate rules than secular non-profits.

[Tonio]

The difference is that there's no requirement that a religious organization be nonprofit, as witness Scientology.

Wow - I had assumed that all religious organizations in America were required to have 503(c) status. I would support such a requirement.

religious organizations should not be covered by separate rules than secular non-profits.

I agree.

[Steve]

Come out, Fred. There's no reason to closet your atheism any further.

[kodiak]

I have a friend in the clergy who is all for removing or reworking the tax exempt status of the church. She feels that the original purpose of that tax status has been lost almost entirely by most denominations (including her own). The original purpose? not to tax money that was going to be used to comfort widows and orphans, feed the hungry, house the homeless, and visit the afflicted (I don't remember which Bible verse that is, but I think I got pretty close).

Most churches today give less than 10% of the funds that come in to those goals (unless the tithes/offerings are specifically directed for that purpose by the individual making teh gift). More is spent on heating and cooling the building, paying salaries (clergy, secretary, organist, choir director, janitor, etc.) and keeping up with the congregational needs/wants (computer with powepoint projector and powerpoint screen come directly to mind).

When the churches were granted exempt status (in North America at least) they were providing a valuable service that the government could not manage, and they were doing so because it was their Christian duty. So even with the tax exemption, they were saving the government the money, time and effort of putting in place similar programs. It was a net win for the community.

But today, these services are provided by and large by the government or other charitable institutions. In fact, many churches have attached charitable institutions to direct their funds at one particular mission. It makes good sense for all of these charities to remain exempt, but for the standard running of the church to be taxed. Running a Sunday service does not benefit the entire community, just the congregants of that church. So let's give the money back to those who can use it and make the church admit that they have moved away from the mission they started with.

(eee, that was long, sorry!)

[Praline]

With all due respect, Praline, I don't think you can blame the problems of British banks ENTIRELY on the U.S. Witness the collapse of the building societies, for example.

I'm not blaming it entirely. I don't understand it in enough detail to say anything entire at all. Certainly the UK housing market went crazy as well, and has been in a state of ever-increasing insanity for more than a decade - even worse than the US market, I think - which cannot have helped. I am under the impression that banks with American links are struggling the worst, and our government is on the radio saying that it's necessary for our economy that the US one gets fixed - but I'm not exactly a financial wizard, so. :-) My main point is that the American economy, being so large, has a major ripple effect on every one else.

[Andrew R.]

Come on, Steve, Fred's no atheist. He absolutely has a religion.

That religion, of course, is Social Democracy (with a little bit of Jesus thrown in for flavor).

[Geds]

Come out, Fred.

The deeply important question here is, "Who made Steve?"

[J]

Yeah, that's good, take lots and lots of this rope I've got here for you, Religious People. No, no need to hide your greed and lust for power; let it shine for all to see like a city on a hill or a light held aloft or a teenager on the cover of Barely Legal.

Please, do what the church did in Europe for 1700 years and get good and glued to the government. Skip and prance through the halls of power and let everyone see you doing it.

Sleep peacefully at night. There will be no day of reckoning and no foreseeable consequences to be learned from an hour spent with history books.

[Cowboy Diva]

Kodiak,
I think you are absolutely right; most congregations these days are better at maintaining buildings and paying staff than actually providing what they would call a ministry. My own congregation will Real Soon Now get to make the decision to keep buildings at all; how does having a building help the mission of the local church?

To be honest, I am completely okay with churches paying property taxes; that way they get to support the infrastructure they use just like the rest of us.

I also want to note that many 501(c)(3) organizations have a connected 501(c)(4) entity for electioneering/policy/lobbying purposes. Planned Parenthood and HRC come immediately to mind. You can support the services and/or the policy-making; one is tax-deductible, the other is not.

[MikhailBorg]

I know I shouldn't be feeding, but really, how can anyone read this blog and not think of our host as a deeply religious person?

As near as I can tell, Jesus' main message was, "You schmucks oughta be nicer to each other." It's astonishing how many Christians over the centuries just Don't Want To Do That, so they find any excuse to get out of it. "Paul gave me a list of people I didn't have to be nice to if I didn't feel like it. So did the Pope, and so did my pastor, and so did the President. Any or all of those guys trump Jesus, right?"

Buddha had a similar message; I hear Mohammed did too before the militants got hold of his writings. Apparently, God not to stress it in writing for the Jews, preferring to let the world kick 'em around until they figured it out on their own, suggesting that God was giving the Jewish culture credit for intelligence or stubbornness (or both).

It's not all that hard to be nice to people. Sometimes it's even fun to do it to people you're mad at, because it cheeses them off and then you can feel smug. Why are so many Christians desperate to avoid it?

[MikhailBorg]

That is, "God decided not to stress it in writing for the Jews". Stupid fumble-fingers.

[Tonio]

I hear Mohammed did too before the militants got hold of his writings.

Do you mean the militants rewrote his words or simply reinterpreted them?

[MikhailBorg]

Do you mean the militants rewrote his words or simply reinterpreted them?

I fear I'm not well-informed enough to say, though I would hardly be surprised to hear that there was a little of both involved.

[hapax]

Do you mean the militants rewrote his words or simply reinterpreted them?

Er, well, a lot of the latter, mostly through dubious hadith. But really, there's a lot of that in the Quran, too; Muhammed, for a prophet of the Be Nice To Each Other had the extraordinary bad luck of being handed huge amounts of real political power, which makes it insanely difficult to not add the addendum: "or else, by God, I'll make you be nice to each other!"

History teaches us that the latter never ends well.

[Jeff]

That religion, of course, is Social Democracy (with a little bit lot of Jesus thrown in for flavor).

Fixed! That religion is called "Christianity" -- you should look into it sometime!

[Jenny Islander]

The difference is that there's no requirement that a religious organization be nonprofit, as witness Scientology.

Scientology is a bad example because its non-profit status was gained primarily by relentless harassment via lawyer. Basically, the IRS granted a tax exemption to Scientology because they were tired of fighting. The basic issue, IIRC, was that the so-called church teachings first appeared in print as psychological methods that were most definitely being offered for sale at a profit, leading to the rather obvious conclusion that Scientology's founder was simply tired of paying taxes on his business income. More at xenu dot net.

I think that taxing all actual religious organizations would open quite a can of worms, however. My church, when we can afford it, offers a free breakfast to whoever cares to show up, whether they attend church or not. Would that be a tax deduction or not? Would we have to apply a needs test at the door to the parish hall in order to make the breakfast a tax deduction? What would we be required to do about the members of the congregation who volunteer to clean, paint, shovel snow, etc.? Would we have to insure them, insist that they accept a paycheck, or what? Could we claim a tax deduction for the sandwiches we make for the homeless shelter or the canned food we donate to the battered women's shelter? If so, how, considering that people just buy what is needed and bring it around? And would there be a certain percentage of our income that we would be expected to donate to area non-profits in order to claim complete tax-exempt status? How much, to whom, and what if it's all in kind? What should we do about the special collections from the offering plate (this week for the nearby (non-member) family whose house burned down, next week to purchase goods to send to our soldiers in Iraq)? How many extra volumes would need to be added to the tax code to cover all this stuff? And would people who know how churches, mosques, covens, synagogues, etc., actually go about their work be commissioned to write them?

Frankly, I would be more inclined to tax those big, rich churches that don't give any money or services to non-members if I had actually ever seen one.

Jenny Islander: I would be more inclined to tax those big, rich churches that don't give any money or services to non-members if I had actually ever seen one.

Oh, come visit me. I'll give you a tour. (Of course, there are approximately ten times as many little, poor, churches that also don't give any money or services to non-members, especially since most of the congregation are members of the pastor's extended family)

But I digress.

IANAL, but I don't think the problems are as difficult as you make them sound. I offer you again the example of the public library and the separately incorporated associated groups -- Friends groups, Foundations, Teen Councils, etc. -- which are permitted to engage in fundraising on behalf of the library, which the library itself is not permitted to do. They have strictly separated finances and leaderships, and depending on their various tax categories can engage in commerce, lobbying local government, etc., while all working very closely with the library administration in the same building.

If your church insurance doesn't already cover volunteers on premises, you should definitely look into that. Valuations of donations in kind or time for tax deductions would the responsibity of the donors, just as they are now. Special collections in the offering plate could be designated just as they are now -- my church just has you write a line in the memo of the check or on the outside of a sealed envelope for cash. Etc. etc.

Most of this stuff is already in the IRS code. Non-profits have been dealing with these complications for years. Why should religious organizations get a special exemption from the law just because we are such Good People?

[Tonio]

Why should religious organizations get a special exemption from the law just because we are such Good People?

I suspect it's an emotional issue - in my past experience, whenever the subject has come up, many people imagine churches closing because they're unable to pay their taxes, with nuns and orphans being tossed out into the street. (Why wasn't Jake and Elwood's former orphanage exempt from property taxes?)

[hapax]

that was me, pretending I knew something about taxes, up there @2:07, if anybody wondered.

Tonio, you remind me of that old SNL "Fluckers" skit:

Try our new jam, "Ten Thousand Nuns and Orphans".

"Ten Thousand Nuns and Orphans"? What's so disgusting about that?

They were all eaten by rats!

[J]

I suspect it's an emotional issue - in my past experience, whenever the subject has come up, many people imagine churches closing because they're unable to pay their taxes...

Oh, what a terrible prospect.

[J]

I suspect it's an emotional issue - in my past experience, whenever the subject has come up, many people imagine churches closing because they're unable to pay their taxes...

Oh, noes. What a terrible prospect.

[kodiak]

Could we claim a tax deduction for the sandwiches we make for the homeless shelter or the canned food we donate to the battered women's shelter? If so, how, considering that people just buy what is needed and bring it around?

You're making this way more complicated than it actually is. The church collecting canned goods for a homeless shelter is no different from a school doing the same thing, or a public library, or an office. The item given is understood to be well under the normal reciept limit (a 20 cent can of corn, a 50 cent box of pasta, etc.) so that's not a concern to most people, and the collection of food is already being done on behalf of a needy organization. The church is fascilitating, but the only material thing they are contributing is access to the parisioners and a safe place for the bin in the church lobby. Once the bin is full, volunteers come by to pick it up on behalf of the (other) charity. Are you really stressing about the implications of Second Harvest putting a cardboard box in the lobby?

And as (anonymous) hapax said, most churches already have ways of targeting any funds you give as you direct them (sunday school, building fund, new hymnals, etc.) and are known to take special targetted collections where all of the non-earmarked funds go to a specific cause (overseas missions, a local homeless shelter, etc.). They've been doing it for years. The only real difference will be in the accounting at the other end, not on the congregant's side of things.

[Tonio]

I had forgotten about Fluckers. No surprise that it was written by the Dark Prince, Michael O'Donoghue, who once said, "I don't think television will ever be perfected until the viewer can press a button and cause whoever is on the screen's head to explode."

[damnedyankee]

While that would be a good idea in principle, I don't want to get the government involved in determining what constitutes a religious organization.

Or, to quote a bumper sticker from the heady days of the 1990's, when all of the cool right-wingers thought government was icky and gross: "IS YOUR CHURCH ATF APPROVED?"

And I'm not saying that Steve is Snowball, but he is displaying a, shall we say, rather porcine level of reading comprehension.

[Tonio]

Or, to quote a bumper sticker from the heady days of the 1990's, when all of the cool right-wingers thought government was icky and gross: "IS YOUR CHURCH ATF APPROVED?"

After Waco, how much did the Persecuted Hegemon demagogues exploit the raid to manipulate the fears of RTCs? I had the impression that much of that went on, but I don't remember reading about it in the media.

[Doctor Science]

the UK housing market went crazy as well, and has been in a state of ever-increasing insanity for more than a decade - even worse than the US market, I think

*boggles* Wow, that's hard to believe. No-money-down mortgages? Negative equity in homes? It's true, of course, that there's a reason Jerome a Paris (one of those best-qualified to say "I told you so") talks about The Anglo Disease.

[JayDeeJaye]

I think these groups succeed more in attracting attention that they don't really want than in what they intend to do, which is fight against the Evil of the Day. IMHO, the fight is rarely justified. I wish they'd just stick to the business of caring for their communities (their ENTIRE communities, not just the popular bits). In the faith I'm growing into, that kind of fear mongering behavior implies a severe lack of trust in the God they claim is in control. How can they be so blind to the irony?

And these churches would simply become (and be quite *proud* of being) martyrs for the cause of the Persecuted Hegemony

And that hits the nail right on the old noggin. A little Persecution Envy: they need to be persecuted to feel like they're RTCs. It's sad that they're wasting the abundance of freedom they have. It's sadder still that when the hammer falls it will hit the entire Christ-following faith.

[Lee Ratner]

The reason why religious organizations are tax-exempt in the United States is because it is felt if it were otherwise than the state could use the power to tax to destroy unpopular religions.

[Cowboy Diva]

Lee Ratner,
cite plz. thx.

[Technomad]

My own take is that churches should pay taxes, with exemptions for monies actually used for charitable purposes. Spend money on a homeless shelter? Deduct it. Spend money on building up your business or real estate empire? You pay taxes on the profits.

One problem with our system is that it's very easy to hide mis-doing behind religious cloth---and that's not limited to Christians, either. ISKCON (the Hare Krishnas) were up to all sorts of shenanigans for years and years, involving various sorts of fraud, the single biggest trademark-infringement case in history up to that time, murders, and all sorts of other stuff---a great deal of which they were able to get away with because the law hesistates to even look like it's coming down on a religion, particularly a freaky, unpopular one. We all know about the Scientologists' sins, I think; and the smaller, freaky branches of the Latter-Day Saint movement (FLDS, Lambs of God and others) have instituted reigns of terror against their enemies, again, with near-total impunity.

The Westboro "Baptist" "Church" is, at seventh and last, a law firm with a steeple on top---but that steeple allows them to terrorize Topeka with blizzards of frivolous lawsuits and endless harassment by picket.

And let us not forget Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's didoes---I mean, honestly! Gold-plated plumbing? An air-conditioned doghouse? I don't expect them to live like I do---I do understand that they were at the heads of a big organization, and RHIP...but come ON! If the IRS had been there looking over their shoulders, they might not have peculated so wildly and ended up in trouble in the first place.

[Michele my bell-flower]

@hapax: Try our new jam, "Ten Thousand Nuns and Orphans".
"Ten Thousand Nuns and Orphans"? What's so disgusting about that?
They were all eaten by rats!

OMG, that reminds me....

I grew up near Cincinnati, Ohio. The local Album-Oriented Rock station (WEBN) used to produce an annual album of local musical talent, the proceeds of which went to charity (a different charity each year, IIRC). About the time I was 13 or 14 or so, they started producing videos to go with the songs, which were then aired on a local TV station.

You just reminded me of one song on that year's album (the video of which looked like a newscast, with the newscasters pantomiming the action):

It was a bus full of nuns holding babies
It was a bus full of nuns holding babies
It was a bus full of nuns holding babies in their arms, went over the cliff

Bus = mime steering wheel
nuns = mime prayer hands
babies = mime holding/rocking a baby
over the cliff = mime rolling action

(I won't even mention my favorite song: Just Chili! by Dave and the One Ways.)

no beans
no onions
just chili...

[Michele my bell-flower]

Oh yeah, there's more!

The nuns were blind,
and the babies were refugees(back-up singers)
the nuns were blind,
and the babies were refugees(back-up singers)

(testing to make sure the italics are off)