I wonder what marketing/advertisement work was done to achieve this. It's not like you just need to open a Patreon account and start getting $10k+ immediately.
P.S.: BTW, all this money is "donations", aren't they? So under a lot of legislations you wouldn't even have to pay taxes on that.
Doubtful, I think for something to qualify as a tax-exempt donation the recipient has to qualify under 501(c) (aka charities/non-profits). These might be classified as "gifts" (which are exempt up to $15,000 per giver per year) but most likely it's considered a subscription (since the patrons get early access to content in return for their payments) and the author would have to pay income tax.
sole proprietorships and llc's, which would be the main mode of organizing a small company for donations, are for the most part pass-through to individual income for tax purposes and so would have roughly the same tax overhead (aka 0%) as a non-profit religious entity
also: one could just as easily create a 'x rights activism' group as a tax-free non-profit so why single out religion specifically?
P.S.: BTW, all this money is "donations", aren't they? So under a lot of legislations you wouldn't even have to pay taxes on that.