When Screwtape, depicted by C.S. Lewis as a mid-level administrator in hell's Lowerarchy, gloated that "Prosperity knits a man to this world," he might well have been thinking of tax-exempt religious corporations.

The "Utah Compromise" on religious liberty, which was enacted with the conspicuous support of the LDS Church, offers a splendid case study of the depths of cravenness to which a corporate church will descend in order to preserve its tax exemption. The headline selected by the LDS Church-owned Deseret News captures the import of that ignoble legislation: "LDS Church's chief lawyer says not all religious freedoms should be defended the same."

When "rights" become the subject of triage, they cease to be rights and mutate into conditional, revocable privileges. All legitimate rights are property rights, and all property rights are absolute. They can, and must, be exercised simultaneously by believers, agnostics, and atheists alike, and are reconciled through commerce and contract.

Believers and non-believers of all sexes and gender identities should seek first the protection of property rights, and all other individual liberties will be added unto them.  Arguably the defining liberty is the right to say "no" — to eschew commerce, as well as engage in it, to accept or decline an invitation to associate with others.

In a free society, the officially licensed larceny called "taxation" would not exist, and productive people of all descriptions would keep everything they have earned, saved, or inherited. In an unfree but relatively civilized society, religious institutions (and non-religious charities) would be tax-immune, rather than tax-exempt. The Regime dispenses exemptions in the service of the true purpose of the income tax system, which is social engineering. This was pointed out seventy years ago by Beardsley Ruml, who at the time was Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

For corporate churches, tax exemption defines the length of their leash.

Digested to its essence, the Utah Compromise – which is being presented as a model for other states – treats the public expression of "religious liberty" in the "Love Wins" age in purely institutional terms. Religious individuals are free to believe in traditional views of marriage, sexuality, and "gender" – but only to the extent that those beliefs have no tangible impact on their public conduct, beyond the occasional Facebook post or letter to the editor. Those "core" liberties, furthermore, are highly contingent and subject to further restriction without notice.

The "non-negotiable" core rights supposedly protected by the "Compromise" legislation, explained Elder Lance B. Wickman, General Counsel for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, consist of the right of religious people to worship privately, in their homes and congregations. They are also "entitled to the same rights of free speech and expression in the public square as nonbelievers," and should be protected against official discrimination on the basis of belief.

Near the "core" can be found "freedoms that pertain to religiously important nonprofit functions carried on by religious organizations," Wickman continues. This includes the right to make hiring and personnel decisions "based on religious criteria" and to carry out charitable outreach "without substantial interference by government and without being forced to engage in activities that are fundamentally contrary to their beliefs."

In matters of commerce, however, "our expectations of unfettered religious freedom must be tempered," Wickman advised. Religious believers are free – at least for now – to practice their faith at home and within the shelter of a government-recognized corporate church, but once they leave the reservation they "must be willing to make prudential compromises."

"Preserving the ability of business owners to conduct every aspect of their businesses according to their religious beliefs will be impossible," according to Wickman. "And the Church itself" – in this case, the LDS Church, but the principle can apply to any government-licensed denomination – "is not in a position to fight that fight if doing so comes at the expense of more core religious freedoms. Protecting those freedoms must remain the priority, or we risk losing even them." (Emphasis added.)