The Holy Land Experience is a church?

Check it out. The Holy Land Experience theme park is a church and as such, receives a healthy property tax exemption. The only catch is they have to offer free admission just one day a year. Pretty sweet deal, right? Well it seems not sweet enough for the Trinity Broadcast Network which owns the park and the ministry. They'd really rather keep the whole free day thing pretty hush hush.

Now follow along here at the explanations from the ministry. First, they only advertise the free day on the local company channel. Now before you cry foul, they claim that the channel "literally covers 100 percent of the greater Orlando area". That's great for the people of Orlando who happen to watch that channel (no word about how frequently or how far in advance they make this announcement, btw), but I guess anyone considering traveling there from outside Orlando wouldn't have a clue. No website announcement?

Ah, but if everybody knew, then they'd have their hands full with the mob since the park "simply does not have the parking, traffic control, comfort facilities and food service capabilities of other venues," and cutely adds, "[w]e trust that the city of Orlando does not want an uncontrollable situation to occur at the park on this day."

So to recap, they get a break to the tune of roughly $300,000 a year on their taxes if they offer free admission just one day a year but won't openly advertise when this day will be each year beyond their own local tv channel, defend this move as effective advertising by claiming that it reaches 100% or Orlando yet at the same time say they can't advertise more or else they couldn't handle the crowds, followed by a little fearsome image of what would happen and "trusting" Orlando doesn't want that to happen like some mafia mooks offering protection because it'd be a shame if anything were to happen to this place. Can you smell the bullshit? It's like a day on the pasture.

This whole thing is a complete sham, and it should effectively make every group angry. Anyone who cares about church/state separation and hates tax exemption for churches should be upset. Churches and other non-profits should be upset with the clear exploitation of the current tax exemption privilege that they enjoy. Families looking to actually make a vacation out of going to this park should be upset because they can't find out when this free day is, and finally the people of Orlando and perhaps the rest of Florida should be upset that at a time like this, when they're going to face a double whammy of increased taxes and a reduction of services from their state and local governments due to the economic crunch, TBN is making out like bandits stealing at least $300,000 of money from the governments' coffers.

Boy, imagine if the Mouse caught on and sought such an exemption. I certainly know people who visit religiously. Would it be such a stretch?