title:  Hate Group Leader Claims Gay People Are Imposing Islamic Tax On American Christians (AUDIO)
text: Mat Staver, leader of the legal organization Liberty Counsel, has declared that gay people in America are imposing a  jizya  style tax on American Christians. Jizya refers to a tax levied on non-Muslim subjects living in a Muslim land under Islamic law.Since gay people have to date had zero successes in directly taxing only American Christians, the context Staver is trying to apply will need some explanation.Staver is trying to reclassify legal fines for  Christians  violating anti-discrimination laws as a tax on American Christians for  living their life by their spiritual beliefs.  A well-known example of this is the case of Sweet Cakes by Melissa. The bakery denied serving a same-sex couple and ended up paying over $135,000 in state ordered damages and fines.The line Staver is trying to draw between these two issues is completely ridiculous. Literally anybody who would deny service to a same-sex couple or even a gay individual, simply because they re gay, would fall under these civil laws. They could be an atheist who just has an irrational hatred and fear of gay people. It also isn t a tax, because a tax is something you pay regularly regardless of bad behavior or lack thereof. These bigots only pay the penalty when they do something wrong.Liberty Counsel has unsurprisingly been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, due to the fact they devote most of their time to defending bigots and other forms of persecution by Christians against Americans. Staver himself is a Young Earth Creationist who believes that  intelligent design  should be taught in public schools. He denies evolution exists and has fought in the past to deny women rights to their own bodies, as well as trying to sabotage the Affordable Care Act.It s worth noting that gay people used to actually pay a fee for being gay in some cases. One person shared a story of how she and her wife paid an extra $1,820 per year because their marriage was not federally recognized. This was due to her being on her wife s health insurance plan, and the company she worked for had to treat it as additional taxable income due to DOMA, when it was still active. Gay people didn t have a choice to pay this. Bigots always have a choice. They just make the wrong one every single time, and that isn t our fault.Listen to Stayers comments about gay taxation below:[soundcloud url= https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/243882433  params= auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true  width= 100%  height= 450  iframe= true  /]Featured image via youtube screen capture