Jonathan
I was afraid my memory was going the way of my golf swing....
Following is from the Post archives:
2/25/83
ANNAPOLIS, Feb. 24 -- Burning Tree Club, the last all-male golfing bastion in the Washington area, was told by Montgomery County's state senators today that it must either open its doors to women or be stripped of its $152,000 yearly exemption from state and county property taxes.
3/23/84
ANNAPOLIS, March 22 -- Valuable tax breaks were preserved today for the Burning Tree Club and other organizations that discriminate on the basis of race or sex as a Maryland legislative committee killed two bills to strip such groups of their tax credits.
3/17/86
A handful of zealous women, who object to Burning Tree's all-male status, now seek to deprive Burning Tree of the special tax assessment for open spaces. They would require Burning Tree to admit women to membership on pain of losing this assessment.
7/23/87
Since 1965, Maryland has allowed the land owned by country clubs to be assessed at a lower rate if clubs agree not to develop the property. That amounted to a tax savings of $300,000 for Burning Tree for the 1986-87 tax year, according to court documents. The documents state that from 1981 to 1985, Burning Tree paid $165,000 in property taxes to both the state and Montgomery County.
10/5/89
Burning Tree Country Club in Bethesda relinquished its state "open space" tax break in 1989 to remain all- male after Maryland's highest court ruled that its membership policies discriminated against women.
There was no mention of any suit against Burning Tree by a lady lobbyist, though both Montgomery County Council officials and the MD Atty General were involved in the litigation. There have been a couple of cases in the DC area where women have sued on grounds similar to those you describe, but they involved clubs other than Burning Tree (Manor was one, but the facts of the case were substantially different).
To reassociate this little diversion with the original question of the thread, though, it's clear that the tax policy of a particular jurisdiction will differ substantially for public/muni/resort/private, and may be driven more by the political agenda than by reasonable considerations.
Jamey
Mr. Hearst..... "respected and mainstream body as the Maryland legislature" is a classic!