TVC Director Debates IRS's Tax Deduction on Fox
Executive Director of Traditional Values Coalition Andrea Lafferty calls the IRS's decision 'outrageous,' two days after the group sent a letter to the IRS asking it to reverse its decision.
Traditional Values Coalition believes people suffering from confusion in their gender don’t need a sex operation but psychiatric help. So when the IRS announced it would grant a tax deduction for a “sex reassignment” operation after a homosexual group argued it was “medically necessary,” TVC said the IRS was sending the wrong message that a physical operation could solve a mental problem.
The conservative group based in Orange County, California, is now sending a message of its own to the Internal Revenue Service. On Dec. 14 TVC’s Rev. Louis P. Sheldon sent a letter of concern to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson asking the IRS to reverse its decision allowing tax deductions for sex operations.
Two days later, Andrea Lafferty, executive director of TVC, appeared on Fox’s “Your World” to debate the issue with the Mara Keisling, a male-to-female transgendered individual who heads the National Center for Transgender Equality.
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“This is unfair. It’s outrageous,” Lafferty told the show’s host Neil Cavuto. “What about breast enhancements for all your Victoria’s Secret fans out there, what about eye lips, what about brow lifts, what about all the other cosmetic surgery people claim they need because they have some disorder?”
In response, Keisling called the conception that sex operations are purely cosmetic a “misunderstanding.” He justified the IRS’s tax deduction, interpreting the decision as saying, “What is medically necessary is between the doctor and the patient.”
“We are not talking about troubled bodies but troubled minds,” said Lafferty, referring to people who think they are the opposite sex. “I don’t think the American people would care if individuals in this situation get tax deductions for therapy or going to see a psychiatrist.”
She said the problem is that a doctor can say this is a medical necessity and then the person can get a tax deduction to fix it, noting that many other people with diseases do not receive a tax deduction.
The IRS decision came after Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) filed an appeal on behalf of Rhiannon O’Donnabhain, a man who underwent a sex-reassignment surgery to become a woman in 2001, and argued the operation was “medically necessary.”
By granting tax deductions for sex operations, the IRS is not only furthering the confusion among individuals with Gender Dysphoria, according to Sheldon’s letter to the IRS, it is aiding in the homo/trans movement is currently guided by a belief that concepts such as male and female are simply cultural inventions that can be altered at will by the individual.
TVC is urging citizens to use CapWiz to send a letter of protest to the IRS: http://capwiz.com/traditional/home/
