helemon
19th August 2005, 03:26 PM
http://lds-mormon.com/taxes_priesthood.shtml
Here are some of the relevant quotes. Those interested will want to read all of Chapter V, "The Bob Jones Case".
Rex Lee [who later became the BYU President], who had been sworn in as Solicitor General seven months before [the Bob Jones brief was filed in 1982], had once represented the Mormon church when it faced a problem like Bob Jones's and, to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, he had taken himself off the case. (p. 50 -- footnoted reference is to an interview the author had with Lee)
In 1970, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that Bob Jones no longer qualified for tax-exempt status because of [its] segregationist policy, so the school changed it. Blacks could be accepted if they were married to other blacks, or if they promised not to date or marry outside their race... By the time of the Supreme Court case, a decade later, the number of blacks attending the school was less than a dozen, making the ratio of whites to blacks about 550 to one.
From the vantage point of the Solicitor General's office, the legal issue in the Bob Jones case was routine. It was a tax question. (p. 53)
In conclusion, there was probably more than one reason why blacks were finally allowed to have the Mormon Priesthood. One of them was likely the possibility of a change in the church's tax-exempt status.
Here are some of the relevant quotes. Those interested will want to read all of Chapter V, "The Bob Jones Case".
Rex Lee [who later became the BYU President], who had been sworn in as Solicitor General seven months before [the Bob Jones brief was filed in 1982], had once represented the Mormon church when it faced a problem like Bob Jones's and, to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, he had taken himself off the case. (p. 50 -- footnoted reference is to an interview the author had with Lee)
In 1970, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that Bob Jones no longer qualified for tax-exempt status because of [its] segregationist policy, so the school changed it. Blacks could be accepted if they were married to other blacks, or if they promised not to date or marry outside their race... By the time of the Supreme Court case, a decade later, the number of blacks attending the school was less than a dozen, making the ratio of whites to blacks about 550 to one.
From the vantage point of the Solicitor General's office, the legal issue in the Bob Jones case was routine. It was a tax question. (p. 53)
In conclusion, there was probably more than one reason why blacks were finally allowed to have the Mormon Priesthood. One of them was likely the possibility of a change in the church's tax-exempt status.