Talk:Unification Movement

Editorial comment moved here

Moved from article: (by Willmcw)

(QUESTIONS: 1. Are any of these organizations and individuals other than Unification Church sponsored entities? If not, make that clear. 2. If the answer to this first question is "No, it is completely a Unification Church project..." then some qualification of the means by which the ends to which the movement is dedicated should be made. "Ideal family", "God" and "world peace" have very particular meanings peculiar to the Unification Church and there should be links to other articles that make that apparent. This is needed to make this a NPOV article. Thank you... Emyth 12:48, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC))

Restriction of political speech by churches

This statement needs to be clarified: In the United States, for example, a federal law restricts political speech by churches and pastors...

This would seem to fly in the face of the First Amendment, so it needs to be clarified - which law?. Is this talking about some IRS regulation to try and prevent sham churches from being founded in order to get tax exemption for the members? Tempshill 8 July 2005 17:44 (UTC)

The law is that tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations cannot participate in political campaigns. Any church may forgo that status and participate. So it is not a restriction per se, but it puts a large price tag on that speech. I'll see if I can re-word it for better clarity. Cheers, -Willmcw July 8, 2005 21:57 (UTC)

There's also a fairly prevelent loophole, support Bush, and you'll never have to worry about losing your tax exempt status -- anon

Exactly, and churches who told people to vote for Clinton or Gore had no trouble either. --Uncle Ed 20:24, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget today's NPR story that the majority of the fish for Sushi restarants in the US actually buy from Moon, who would have known! Story broke today in Chicago newspaper.

Speaking of NPR, they say

• It's illegal for a tax-exempt organization like a church to endorse or criticize candidates, but the boundaries aren't always clear. [1]

The Unification Church has had to be extra cautious, due to increased scrutiny. --Uncle Ed 20:27, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Forrest Gump reference

Is that really at all necessary and appropriate in this article? I'd like to know if anyone but me feels it is disrespectful and pointless in the article. Vaguely 20:10, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Merge

No proposal for a merge into Unification Church has been made yet on this page, (and, obviously, no rationale provided), nor do I think it is likely to be supported by knowledgeable people. The distinction between the Unification Church proper and the totality of all organizations, businesses, projects, and ideas associated with Sun Myung Moon is an important one. That's why Rep. Donald Frasier, in the early days of Unificationism expanding into a so-called "movement," felt compelled to make up his own name for it, and called it "the Moon organization." -Exucmember 18:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

The definition of the Unification Church in its own article has been expanded to include the entire community of Unificationist believers. Not just the HSA-UWC. As far as I know there has never been an organization officially called the Unification Church, although I might be wrong about this. Steve Dufour 20:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I have changed my mind based on Steve's comment. There is a distinction between HSA-UWC and the whole community of Unificationists, but "Unification Church" could mean either one. On 27 September 2006, OwenBlacker proposed a merge by putting a tag on the Unification Movement page, though he didn't propose it here or provide a rationale. But maybe it seems obvious to outsiders that having multiple names leads to confusion.

Also, "Unification Movement" is not really accurate. It is an organization, or a group of organizations, or a community, but it is not really a movement. A movement is "a diffusely organized or heterogeneous group of people or organizations tending toward or favoring a generalized common goal: the antislavery movement; the realistic movement in art"(dictionary.com). It implies a sweeping, fast-moving, (usually) growing collection of activities or sentiment toward a particular and rather narrow goal or purpose, supported by people very loosely organized (if organized at all), with highly permeable membership boundaries (if any boundaries or defined membership at all), not a highly structured organization or group of organizations with sharply defined membership boundaries. "Movement" is not really the right word to describe Unificationism. Nevertheless, it is used. It is used, however, by a small number of Western people closely connected to Unificationism (including a few scholars who've studied it in depth), and by almost no one else. -Exucmember 17:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

One possible course of action would be to keep the Unification Movement page with its brief explanation, citing that "Unification Movement" is used by scholars. This could be done independently of whether a narrow (Unification Church = HSAUWC) or broad (Unification Church = the community of Unificationists) definition is used for the Unification Church. If the page is kept, however, I don't think people should link to it when they could link to the Unification Church page, as this would reduce usability for the vast majority of readers. -Exucmember 17:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)