Dr. Dino On God's Payroll

Up to bat with the latest Pensacola News Journal report about Dr. Dino's tax fraud trial is Nicole Lozare. With the excessive credulity she usually musters for any fantastic fable, Lozare again refers to Hovind, erroneously as we have hinted before, as a "tax protestor." Then she reports without a hint of irony:

"Despite a million-dollar business and speaking engagement earnings of nearly $50,000 a year, Pensacola evangelists Kent and Jo Hovind did not count the money as income.
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Special IRS Agent Scott Schneider testified Monday that the couple denied that they had any income in numerous documents.
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"Kent Hovind, a tax protester, makes a substantial amount of money. Schneider testified that in 2002, the ministry sold more than $1.8 million in Christian merchandise. But Hovind believes he and his employees work for God, are paid by God and, therefore, aren't subject to taxation."

It's difficult to believe Schneider actually testified that Hovind "believes" his own bull. More likely, what agent Schneider testified is that this is what Hovind claimed.

Maybe Lozare was just exhausted. She writes that Schneider was on the witness stand "for nearly eight hours," from which one can assume (because the reporter isn't saying) that the judge is making the lawyers work overtime after a week off due to a defense attorney's illness.

In any event, Hovind's substantial income didn't stop him or his wife from pleading poverty to a local medical establishment:

"'Dr. and Mrs. Kent Hovind do not earn salaries,' wrote Martha Harris, the trust secretary of Creation Science Evangelism to Baptist. 'As health insurance is not provided for this couple, we would appreciate (financial assistance.)'"

That little anecdote reminds us of a line from Edward Albee's great stage play about self-deception, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? One of the house guests, Nick, is explaining to George that he's financially set because he married a woman whose father was a traveling preacher. The preacher collected a fortune from Christian simpletons, he says, "And when he died there was a lot of money."

George asks, slightly mystified, but wasn't that "God's money?"

"No," says Nick, "He spent God's money and saved his own."