Before there was the tea party, there was Big Mama Rag, Inc.
It was a radical feminist collective in the 1970s, and it devoted itself to lectures, seminars, a free library and a newspaper, the Big Mama Rag. The group applied for nonprofit status from the IRS and was initially refused for, among other reasons, "the articles, lectures, editorials, etc. promoting lesbianism."
That wasn't the end of the IRS taking a discriminatory tone toward nonprofit groups that dealt with homosexuality. In 1996, the Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Support System, a group devoted to helping young people deal with harassment and prejudice due to their sexuality, applied for tax-exempt status. In response, an IRS official wrote that the group could be viewed as "tending to encourage or facilitate homosexual practice and propensities by the young and impressionable" and asked the group to "describe in detail the procedures and safeguards in place to assure that counselors and participants do not encourage or facilitate homosexual practices or encourage the development of homosexual attitudes."
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