Oral Roberts and his churchgoers in Tulsa, Okla., home to his megachurch and university (ORU), are vocal opponents of GLBT rights. They promote homophobia through the guise of religion, just like Bob Jones University promotes racism.

Now, some former ORU professors allege in a lawsuit that ORU’s president (who is Roberts’ son) has misused university funds by using ORU’s private jet to fly himself and his daughters around the country.

Private jets, whether owned or leased, cost millions a year to maintain and staff. Federal tax law does not allow so-called “nonprofit, charitable organizations” to get subsidies so that its leaders can spend lavishly. Does anyone think Mother Theresa had her own private jet subsidized by U.S. taxpayers? The only other president of a private university with his own private jet is, not surprisingly, Regent University’s Pat Robertson. (Regent University has barred gay activists from its campus.)

The reason we should care about this isn’t just because these evangelicals largely collect funds from the vulnerable and the elderly to support their work. It’s also because federal law requires that we subsidize these groups. They receive tax-exempt status because they assert they are “charitable” and “religious” in nature.

But the lavish perks – jets, university mansions and extravagant salaries – at ORU and Regent hardly seem consistent with a “charity” worthy of public subsidies. Yet the Internal Revenue Service has not scrutinized their expenditures. Consequently, it seems that another legacy of the Bush Administration will be the exorbitant funds it bequeathed to “faith-based” groups and its failure to investigate and prosecute those who grossly abuse our tax laws in the name of religion and education.

Ironically, the IRS announced last week that it had closed the book on investigating whether to revoke the tax-exempt status for a pro-gay ministry in Los Angeles that had the gall to oppose the Iraq war. (The strange part is that we know that many megachurches have used their pulpits for anti-gay political advantage in far more demonstrative ways.)

With Gov. Schwarzenegger’s veto of the same-sex marriage bill, the same-sex marriage issue moves to the California Supreme Court, which is expected to hear the case in January and rule 90 days later.

The Los Angeles Daily Journal reports that the right wing already has several initiatives filed and approved by the Secretary of State and Attorney General ready for “signature gathering,” because the right assumes the court will rule in favor of same-sex marriage. The court will rule entirely on the California Constitution, thus preventing the U.S. Supreme Court from having any basis for taking jurisdiction.

Things will get ugly. Don’t be surprised if these same groups threaten to recall members of the California Supreme Court who vote in support of allowing same-sex couples to marry.

They’ve done it before, even to Republican appointees. Ironically, it was Jim Holman, the publisher of the San Diego Reader, who funded a campaign to try to unseat two Republicans from the California Supreme Court who voted to strike down a law requiring parental notice before a minor can obtain an abortion.

In the GLBT community’s favor, we may see here what occurred in Massachusetts, when individuals who signed petitions against the same-sex marriage ruling by the Massachusetts high court discovered that their names and addresses (which are required on petitions) are public information.

When gay folks in Massachusetts learned that their neighborhood merchants, whom they had patronized, were against allowing gays equal rights, they not surprisingly, decided not to continue supporting them. The media referred to this as “anti-straight” conduct.

Let’s hope none of this comes about.

But even if the California Supreme Court rules against same-sex marriage (or a voter initiative against same-sex marriage passes), there are so many other legal ways we can use to re-attack the issue and ensure equality for same-sex couples.