"If Corporations Are Christians"

[applegrove]

If Corporations Are Christians

By Lorelei Laird at Slate.com

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/11/corporations_are_claiming_personhood_to_block_obamacare_s_contraception.html

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



Here’s the catch: Elane petitioned this month for U.S. Supreme Court review, and the case could get mixed up in the fight over the contraception mandate in Obamacare. So far, the federal appeals courts have split over whether the Affordable Care Act infringes on the religious freedom of corporations by requiring them to provide health insurance that includes coverage for contraception. Obamacare is losing 2­–3. If the Supreme Court takes up this issue and grants religious rights to corporations, companies like Elane will be able to argue that laws like New Mexico’s protection against discrimination violate a company’s freedom of religion. And paradoxically, that could add up to less religious freedom, not more.

Before the contraception mandate cases, as one federal appeals court noted, no one had ever asked whether for-profit corporations that aren’t organized around religion—in other words, are not places of worship or other organizations with religious purposes—even have religious freedom rights. That’s because corporations have legal “personhood” only for limited purposes: Most famously, thanks to Citizens United, the Supreme Court gave them that label so they can spend unlimited amounts of money on political advocacy (as long as they don’t directly fund candidates).

This ruling in Citizens United has been fodder for comics because, to state the obvious, corporations are not people with independent thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. That’s part of why the 3rd and 6th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals rejected the claims of corporations that don’t want to follow the contraception mandate in Obamacare. Those courts also ruled that the owners of those companies don’t have a freedom of religion claim of their own, because the mandate does not obligate them as individuals to do anything.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, on the other hand, stopped enforcement of the contraception mandate while the owners of a closely held prepared-foods company pursue their religious freedom claims. By ruling that way, the court was saying the co-owners of Freshway Foods, the brothers Francis and Philip Gilardi, are likely to win their case. And two other federal appeals courts, the 10th and 7th Circuits, found directly that corporations are “people” under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and thus also entitled to court orders stopping enforcement of the contraception mandate.



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[DetlefK]

1. Where does a corporation get its religion from?

Is that religion set in the founding-documents?

Is it taught to the corporation in its early years when it grows and learns?

Is it revealed to the corporation in a divine vision?

If a corporation has a christian boss, an atheist employee and a muslim employee, what's the religion of the corporation?

What if a christian corporation owns shares of a hindu corporation?

How could a corporation prove that it really is member of a particular religion? Is it baptized or circumcised?

[davidpdx]

2. Definately

Religion can only be practice by people, not companies. Once you start enforcing your religious beliefs on others (i.e. not allowing insurance to cover contraception), then you are essentially telling them they have to have the same beliefs.

[madinmaryland]

3. I would prefer the company be neutered so that it

could not reproduce.

[unhappycamper]

5. Some answers:

Is that religion set in the founding-documents?

Yes -->


Is it taught to the corporation in its early years when it grows and learns?

Yes -->


Is it revealed to the corporation in a divine vision?

Yes -->


If a corporation has a christian boss, an atheist employee and a muslim employee, what's the religion of the corporation?



What if a christian corporation owns shares of a hindu corporation?



How could a corporation prove that it really is member of a particular religion? Is it baptized or circumcised?

Their religion -->

[DetlefK]

6. Damn, I ought to have known that. Thanks for the answers anyways.

[unhappycamper]

7. lol n/t

[kentuck]

4. If corporations are individual Christians...?

They would not have the constitutional right to impose their religion on anyone else, not even their employees. In fact, it would be illegal to demand religious beliefs be a requirement for employment. It would be similar to an employee refusing to work with someone because their religion was different from their own. Unless, of course, the Court ruled that corporations had more rights than the individual?

[Volaris]

9. well OF COURSE corporations have more Rights than individuals silly, because Rights=MONEY.

You apparently know nothing about Constitutional Law OR Economics...
Jeez, where's ThirdWayManny when you need him?

[Nevernose]

8. So would a Christian Identity-owned business

Be allowed to discriminate against blacks?

[JHB]

10. Should shareholders be concerned about losing their investment...

...on 13th Amendment grounds?

It is and should be a ridiculous suggestion, but if the groundwork is laid by ever-broader redefinition a of corporate personhood, then it becomes a potential legal tactic and could come into play. Especially if some other legal point is developed that creates a loophole for management and big shareholders, leaving only the little ones to lose out.

If Wall Street can be trusted to do anything, it't to smoke out new and unusual ways of finessing the rules. One more argument for keeping the rules simple and clear.

(And even though this seems unlikely, I'm perfectly fine with using this as a talking point about ways such a change could backfire)