Young Liberals: Abolish Church Taxes and Religious Education

display

The youth organization of the FDP calls for a fundamental reform of the relationship between state and religion.

This is shown in a position paper of the Federal Board of Young Liberals (July), which WELT has received.

The “Ten Commandments for an ideologically neutral state in a plural society” include, among other things, the abolition of church taxes, denominational religious instruction and the ban on public holidays.

The reason for this are possible cover-ups of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and the renewed ban on blessings for same-sex couples by the Vatican.

“It finally needs the political will to update our state for the 21st century,” says July Federal Chairman Jens Teutrine.

Neither the collection of church taxes nor the dissemination of individual religions is the task of the state.

State and church would therefore have to be financially decoupled.

Like other organizations, the churches still have the opportunity to raise contributions themselves.

display

"The separation of spiritual and secular power was already a political demand in the Middle Ages, but has not yet been fully realized," says the position paper.

In future, religious communities should be organized under private law, for example as associations.

Until then, it must be possible to declare resignation from a religious community free of charge and digitally, and religious symbols such as crosses should be removed from public institutions.

In addition, the July want to abolish special rights for religious institutions as employers.

The two Christian churches and their charities are among the largest employers in Germany with around 1.3 million employees.

In addition to the employees of Caritas and Diakonie, this includes employees in church day-care centers, hospitals, nursing homes and private schools.

The General Equal Treatment Act allows the churches to be treated unequal on the basis of religion.

In addition, church labor law provides for no right to strike and no works councils.

The church's right to self-determination is anchored in the Basic Law.

"The church disregards the values ​​of our liberal society in many places," says July boss Jens Teutrine

Source: picture alliance / SvenSimon

display

The FDP youth wants to abolish special rights of the churches also in the occupation of state bodies such as the broadcasting councils.

The broadcasting councils are the supervisory bodies of the public broadcasters who are responsible for program control.

The Protestant and Catholic Churches have permanent seats in it, and Muslim representatives also sit on some councils.

The Young Liberals also want to abolish the right of the churches to "announce broadcasts" on public radio, such as the "Word for Sunday".

“God out of the calendar”, they continue to demand.

The work ban on public holidays is antiquated and should be replaced by a regulation with flexible minimum vacation days.

"The Sunday protection also preserves the moral system of a single social group," says the resolution.

Rigid regulations should give way to "a process that involves society as a whole and, in particular, a collective bargaining process".

The July also want to replace denominational religious education in state schools with diverse ethics classes for everyone.

"Religious upbringing in a certain denomination is a private matter", it says in the decision.

"Our Basic Law is not baptized"

display

In government activities, the FDP has never done anything against religious instruction in schools.

In many federal states, for example, the liberals are also campaigning for state-trained teachers to teach Islam.

In 2016, however, the Bavarian FDP demanded that religious education in public schools be replaced by joint religious studies classes that convey knowledge and understanding of all religions in order to achieve more state neutrality.

"State and church should be consistently separated from one another, because our Basic Law is not baptized," says Juli boss Teutrine.

So far, however, there has been a reference to God in the preamble of the Basic Law.

"Conscious of its responsibility to God and people ... the German people ... gave themselves this Basic Law," it says.

The July want to remove this reference and also only allow oaths in court proceedings without religious additions.

Standards for action in conformity with the constitution are the free-democratic basic order as well as the inalienable and universal human rights, it says in the paper.

"The reference to God in the constitution does not fit this constitutional image of the open society."

In legal literature, the reference to God in the preamble to the Basic Law is largely interpreted as an expression of humility, according to an elaboration by the Scientific Services of the Bundestag.

In addition, the reference to God should clarify the limitations of human activity and emphasize that the state order is made by people and is therefore prone to errors.

The scientific services see no contradiction to the religious and ideological neutrality of the state through this open understanding of the relation to God.

"Church fails to solve the abuse scandals"

Commandment number ten of the young liberals: “Self-determination in all situations!” The resolution states: “The state must not become a guardian of morals on behalf of the religions.” In the legal arrangement of marriage and family, but also in social issues such as “self-determination Die “and the use of modern medical procedures should not be determined by religious dogmas.

“The fact that the church fails to solve the abuse scandals and forbids the blessing of homosexual couples, although there are even blessings for houses and vehicles, shows that it disregards the values ​​of our liberal society in many places,” says Teutrine.

display

Last week, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican had made it clear in a so-called Responsum ad dubium (answer to a doubt) that the Catholic Church was not authorized to bless same-sex couples.

This had caused strong criticism from within the church.

On Saturday around 2,600 Catholic clergy from Germany agreed to continue blessing gay and lesbian couples.

"We do not accept that an exclusive and outdated sexual morality is carried out on the backs of minorities," the statement said.

While the Cologne Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki sees the Vatican declaration as a "strengthening of the Catholic understanding of marriage and family", the chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Georg Bätzing, also joined the criticism.