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TEXAS CONSTITUTION Acknowledgment of God Preamble.
Humbly invoking the blessings of Almighty God, the people of
the State of Texas, do ordain and establish this Constitution.
Religion
Clauses Article I, section 3a. Equality under
the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed, or
national origin. This amendment is self-operative.
Article
I, section 4. No religious test shall ever be required as a
qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one
be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided
he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.
Article I,
section 5. No person shall be disqualified to give evidence
in any of the Courts of this State on account of his religious opinions, or for
the want of any religious belief, but all oaths or affirmations shall be administered
in the mode most binding upon the conscience, and shall be taken subject to the
pains and penalties of perjury.
Article I, section 6. All
men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to
the dictates of their own consciences. No man shall be compelled to attend, erect
or support any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry against his consent.
No human authority ought, in any case whatever, to control or interfere with the
rights of conscience in matters of religion, and no preference shall ever be given
by law to any religious society or mode of worship. But it shall be the duty of
the Legislature to pass such laws as may be necessary to protect equally every
religious denomination in the peaceable enjoyment of its own mode of public worship.
Article I, section 7. No money shall be
appropriated, or drawn from the Treasury for the benefit of any sect, or religious
society, theological or religious seminary; nor shall property belonging to the
State be appropriated for any such purposes.
Education
None
Finance/Property Tax
Article VIII, section 2. (a) All occupation taxes shall
be equal and uniform upon the same class of subjects within the limits of the
authority levying the tax; but the legislature may, by general laws, exempt from
taxation public property used for public purposes; actual places of religious
worship, also any property owned by a church or by a strictly religious society
for the exclusive use as a dwelling place for the ministry of such church or religious
society, and which yields no revenue whatever to such church or religious society;
provided that such exemption shall not extend to more property than is reasonably
necessary for a dwelling place and in no event more than one acre of land; any
property owned by a church or by a strictly religious society that owns an actual
place of religious worship if the property is owned for the purpose of expansion
of the place of religious worship or construction of a new place of religious
worship and the property yields no revenue whatever to the church or religious
society, provided that the legislature by general law may provide eligibility
limitations for the exemption and may impose sanctions related to the exemption
in furtherance of the taxation policy of this subsection; any property that is
owned by a church or by a strictly religious society and is leased by that church
or strictly religious society to a person for use as a school, as defined by Section
11.21, Tax Code, or a successor statute, for educational purposes; places of burial
not held for private or corporate profit; solar or wind-powered energy devices;
all buildings used exclusively and owned by persons or associations of persons
for school purposes and the necessary furniture of all schools and property used
exclusively and reasonably necessary in conducting any association engaged in
promoting the religious, educational and physical development of boys, girls,
young men or young women operating under a State or National organization of like
character; also the endowment funds of such institutions of learning and religion
not used with a view to profit; and when the same are invested in bonds or mortgages,
or in land or other property which has been and shall hereafter be bought in by
such institutions under foreclosure sales made to satisfy or protect such bonds
or mortgages, that such exemption of such land and property shall continue only
for two years after the purchase of the same at such sale by such institutions
and no longer, and institutions engaged primarily in public charitable functions,
which may conduct auxiliary activities to support those charitable functions;
and all laws exempting property from taxation other than the property mentioned
in this Section shall be null and void.
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© 2002-2013 by Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons LLP. All rights reserved.
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