Never Censored

I was recently skimming over the Wikipedia article on Scientology controversies and came across a particularly interesting bit of text:

The Church maintains strict control over the use of its symbols, names and religious texts. It holds copyright and trademark ownership over its cross and has taken legal action against individuals and organizations who have quoted short paragraphs of Scientology texts in print or on Web sites, in some cases asserting their scriptures constitute "trade secrets." Individuals or groups who practice Scientology without affiliation with the Church have been sued for violation of copyright and trademark law.

I thought this was kind of interesting. Arguably, the point of copyright law is to protect businesses (including sole proprietorships) from other businesses trying to make pure profit off of the former. That is, copyright law is there so that should Joe Schmoe want to create a book called Joe Schmoe's Guide to Modern Cults, another profiteer by the name of Jane Doe couldn't come along and copy, verbatim, Joe's Guide to Modern Cults and claim it as her own work while making pure profit.

So, when I see Scientology trying to delve into laws made to protect businesses, a red flag is raised in my head: they're a church— not a business. By definition, they're technically a 501(c)(3) non-profit religious organization. Therefore, I have but one question: why should they be covered by copyright law if the fundamental goal of the organization, legally, is not to turn a profit, but instead to benefit mankind? More importantly, is it valid to use patent/trademark law in matters of religion to begin with?

Above all, if the legal protections designed to protect profit-oriented activities of businesses and individuals are allowed to be applied to churches, then how, exactly, could you even legally distinguish a religion from a business? This one's fairly intriguing, because if the only method for doing so are the tax reporting and exemption statuses delegated by the IRS/states, then we have, in effect, created the largest loophole to a tax code ever known by man. Not only is a religious organization tax-exempt, but unlike every other non-profit organization, it also does not have to report its income to the IRS. Therefore, if religious organizations like Scientology are afforded the same luxury protections as businesses, they are essentially tax-free/tax-reporting-free businesses.

Now, can you imagine how profitable (and dangerous) a business would be if: it never had to pay taxes; it never had to tell the IRS where it's getting its money from; it never had to tell the IRS how it's spending its money; and, it could sue anyone who said anything bad about them? Yikes.

If religious organizations are allowed to be covered by copyright law, and they're allowed to trademark their religion's name, and, on top of that, they can actively bring suit against people who use the name when the religion doesn't want them to, then they are demonstrating business behavior. Essentially, they sue in order to "protect" the corporate image of their "brand name." That makes them even more indistinguishable from businesses. Using the power of the government, they can proactively suppress political dissent, preying directly upon the financial disparity between them, a multi-million dollar organization, and their target, a multi-hundred dollar citizen.