"The Courts Are Going To Decide Whether Corporations Have A Right To 'Practice' Religion"

[applegrove]

The Courts Are Going To Decide Whether Corporations Have A Right To 'Practice' Religion

by Erin Fuchs at Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/do-corporations-have-religious-rights-2013-1

"SNIP.................................................


And Justice Samuel Alito has pointed out that corporations like The New York Times also have a right to free speech.

Still, it's not clear whether the First Amendment exempts corporations, or people, from following laws that violate their religious beliefs.

In its 1990 decision in Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court said the right to exercise religion freely doesn't relieve people of the obligation to comply with a "valid and neutral law," Wendy Kaminer has pointed out in The Atlantic.

"If religious objections to contraception and sterilization merit an exemption from federal law," Kaminer wrote, "then so could religious objections to hiring gay people or single mothers (or married ones, for that matter)."

...............................................SNIP"

[jberryhill]

1. "corporations like The New York Times also have a right to free speech"

Do you believe the Nixon administration should have won the Pentagon Papers case?

[applegrove]

2. Justice Samuel Alito has pointed out that corporations like The New York Times also have a right ...

Alito said it. Why should I answer for Alito.

[jberryhill]

5. I'm not asking you about Alito

I'm asking you about New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971).

Alito wasn't ON the court in 1971.

Do you believe that Nixon should have won that case?

Here's a refresher for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_States

[applegrove]

13. Why would you assume I would be for Nixon? Why? Alito is the one who made reference to that case.

By posting an article, I am not saying I agree with every quote by third parties in that article. Obviously I'm not an Alito fan. Just like everybody else on the DU. Oh good grief!

[jberryhill]

14. Okay, so....

Either you agree that the New York Times Corp. had the right to publish the Pentagon Papers or you do not.

It is not a point of agreeing with someone quoted somewhere.

Did the New York Times Corp. have the right to publish the Pentagon Papers? Yes or no?

[applegrove]

16. Of course. But I do not agree that free speech, as in election spending, should be extended

to all corporations. Likewise religion should be a personal choice, not a corporate one. What right do rich owners have to force their religion on their workers by way of health plans. Which is where Alito seems to be going with the argument.

[Turbineguy]

3. Good point

making money and paying no taxes should be a religion.

[LisaLynne]

4. This is making my head hurt.

I don't ... I mean, what ... er ...

You know, we need to stop with this corporate personhood. It's getting out of hand.

[tularetom]

6. Corporations are people my friend

Ergo they are subject to the same guaranteed freedoms as those of us who breathe, eat, sleep, reproduce, and fart.

I don't like it but people a lot smarter than I have deemed it so.

[4 t 4]

11. right, if corporations are (people)

what is there to decide ?

[Thinkingabout]

7. If this gets passed the sniff test then the next test will be religious obhections to pay taxes.

If corporations gets passed on laws then so should citizens. If corporations are able to force their religious beliefs onto their employees then where does it stop. I have shopped in Hobby Lobby in the past and will decide whether to do so in the future but not with their current stand on birth control, etc. If they are exempt from the laws maybe next they will attempt to force their beliefs on their shoppers, not at my house.

[white_wolf]

8. in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

Well unless you are a corporate person in which case you are immortal and often times end up paying no taxes.

[TheMadMonk]

9. Anyone who would force another to live by their belief system...

...forfeits any right to respect from me or the law.

[Downwinder]

10. Be interesting to see their stated moral code.

What is religion without a moral code?

[RomneyLies]

12. This is the most frightening thing to occur in my lifetime

Seriously, nothing is more dangerous than all powerful global corporations having a right to inflict a specific set of religious beliefs on their employees.

Nothing.

[Angry Dragon]

15. If corporations start getting the same rights as people then they should lose

all the protections that corporations gain by being corporations
One should be able to sue the leaders of corporations as you would sue a sole proprietor

[Initech]

17. Stephen Colbert did a bit a few months ago where he declared himself as a corporation.

He pretty much destroyed all the talking points surrounding corporate person hood- it was glorious.