{"id":43302,"date":"2014-06-30T16:58:16","date_gmt":"2014-06-30T22:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/30\/corporations-are-religious-people-friend.html"},"modified":"2015-05-08T15:50:10","modified_gmt":"2015-05-08T21:50:10","slug":"corporations-are-religious-people-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/30\/corporations-are-religious-people-friend.html","title":{"rendered":"Corporations are religious people, friend"},"content":{"rendered":"
Well, that's… pretty irksome. <\/p>\n

Can we now ask that "closely-held family corporations" clearly identify themselves on all want ads and web pages, with a warning that "The Supreme Court has ruled that we can do pretty much whatever we want in employment law as long as we claim it's based on our religious beliefs"? <\/p>\n

Reshared post from +Andreas Schou<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Two things about this decision:<\/p>\n

(1) Its theory of corporate personhood is backward.<\/b><\/p>\n

A corporation is not its shareholders. It is not its management. It is not its board of directors.\u00a0Nor is it its workers, its creditors, or its customers. A corporation is a distinct legal entity which only has the properties which the law gives it — this being why managers and shareholders are not vicariously liable for the acts of the corporation, and the why corporations can be held liable for acting in its owners' interest.<\/p>\n

This is less clear for closely-held corporations than those that are public. But if a minority shareholder in a closely-held corporation sued to prevent it from implementing an onerous and costly religious duty, the corporation would be liable — it's wasting corporate resources for purposes unrelated to the pursuit of profit. The majority apparently realizes this, and as a result tries to narrow the ruling to apply only to this case.<\/p>\n

(2) The Court creates a category of religious beliefs that are immune to factual inquiry.<\/b><\/p>\n

The core of Hobby Lobby's belief is the following: that a list of birth control drugs are, in fact, abortifacients. Unlike beliefs about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin, where and when particular people lived in the 0th century, and whether are zero gods, one, or many, this question can be disaggregated into a factual and a moral question.<\/p>\n

"Is abortion immoral?", is a moral question which, in conjunction with a religious answer, is protected First Amendment subject matter.<\/p>\n

"Does blood contain some sort of numinous essence which transmits ritual impurity?", is a factual question to which the answer is "no," but the source of the answer is found in the same place as the question, and it is immune from further inquiry.<\/p>\n

"Is birth control abortion?", however, is a factual question with a particular answer. (That answer is "no.") In order to avoid ruling on the factual issue, the Court allows Hobby Lobby to embed it inside its hypothetical religious beliefs.<\/p>\n

We can, and should, respect freedom of conscience without immunizing particular wrong answers to further inquiry.\u00a0\ufeff<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n \n <\/div>\n

Justices Rule in Favor of Hobby Lobby<\/a>
\n The Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, that family-owned corporations cannot be required under the Affordable Care Act to pay for insurance coverage for contraception.\n <\/p>\n

View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, that's… pretty irksome. Can we now ask that "closely-held family corporations" clearly identify themselves on all want ads and web pages, with a warning that "The Supreme Court has ruled that we can do pretty much whatever we want in employment law as long as we claim it's based on our religious beliefs"? Reshared … Continue reading “Corporations are religious people, friend”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,109,350],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-church-state","category-civil-liberties"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":38793,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/22\/matters-of-religion-are-profoundly-personal-not-business-oriented.html","url_meta":{"origin":43302,"position":0},"title":"Matters of religion are "profoundly personal," not business-oriented","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 22-Sep-13 12:22am","format":false,"excerpt":"Matters of religion are \"profoundly personal,\" not business-orientedAn appellate judge -- a conservative appointee of George W. Bush -- has upheld the Obama Administration's rules to require free insurance coverage of birth control. She ruled that corporations are not the same as the person who owns them (the very basis\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22347,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/24\/sorry-mitt-they-still-arent-people.html","url_meta":{"origin":43302,"position":1},"title":"Sorry, Mitt — they still aren’t people","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 24-Aug-11 11:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Mitt Romney tries the warmer, personal approach, trying to come across as a Nice Guy who (still)\u00a0just thinks the Corporations (not unlike Soylent Green) are People. At Wednesday\u2019s town hall, Romney said: \u201cCorporations \u2014 they\u2019re made up of people. They\u2019re just groups of people that come together for work. When\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/bag-of-money.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":30356,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/26\/corporate-conscience.html","url_meta":{"origin":43302,"position":2},"title":"Corporate conscience","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 26-Sep-12 12:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I've weighed in previously on the irksome idea that pharmacists can dictate what services and medications someone can access, based on their personal conscience (i.e., a pharmacist's moral beliefs trumps those of the person seeking that medication).What's more interesting \/ disturbing in this ruling is that it was applied to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43373,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/06\/people-have-goals-and-aspirations-corporations-are-out-for-profit.html","url_meta":{"origin":43302,"position":3},"title":"People have goals and aspirations. Corporations are out for profit","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 6-Jul-14 5:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"And that is the key problem with the Hobby Lobby decision (and Citizens United before it). \u00a0'Here is the textbook legal definition of a corporation: an association of individuals, created by law or under authority of law, having a continuous existence independent of the existences of its members, and powers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45460,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/23\/if-corporations-are-people-can-they-be-imprisoned.html","url_meta":{"origin":43302,"position":4},"title":"If corporations are people, can they be imprisoned?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 23-Sep-14 6:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Well ... maybe they can, if this particular case is upheld.Take all the company's assets, transfer them to government caretaking for the sentence duration, padlock the doors, then hand it all back to the owners when the sentence is complete. Harmful? Destructive of equity? Ruinous of market share? Possibly bankrupting?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45119,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/11\/the-next-hobby-lobby-step-gets-taken.html","url_meta":{"origin":43302,"position":5},"title":"The next Hobby Lobby step gets taken","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 11-Sep-14 5:57am","format":false,"excerpt":"If (at least some) corporations are \"people\" with religious beliefs that have to be respected when it comes to having insurance that lets people do wicked and sinful things -- why not actual people making the same claim? If a corporation has a pious interest in protecting their employees from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50782,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43302\/revisions\/50782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}