Discussion for article #224415
It all boils down to whether corporations, a legal entity designed to protect shareholders from liability, are equivalent to people who have constitutional rights. A Supreme Court ruling in favor of corporations would, not could, open up a can of worms that may take years or even decades to clean up. The question is now whether their hatred for the President will trump common sense and legal precedence.
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Given the Court was unanimous that a paltry buffer zone to separate unruly screaming Christo-fascists from the entrance to a women’s health facility (as if that safety zone impeded their freedom of speech to accost, harass, and humiliate women seeking mammograms, contraception, pap smears, and yes, abortions) I would expect a resounding 9-0 from those towering protectors of FREEDUMB in favor of the Christo-fascists who seek to deprive female employees of needed health care, particularly because those Christo-fascists have a lot of money.
The Hobby Lobby owners could care less about contraception. They sell Chinese items, imported from a nation that limits the number of children in families and forces abortions, and where female babies are abandoned to die if they aren’t fortunate enough to be adopted.
These people have no moral standing – they’re just right wing fascists exerting control over employees over matters that are none of their goddamned business, and flaunting their wealth to resist any Federal mandate, like all these sovereign citizens asswipes.
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The RFRA should be abolished.
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Amen!
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The good news is that SCOTUS has a history of keeping their more “controversial” (i.e. non-RW-friendly) rulings for the last day of the term – ACA, Prop 8/DOMA, Lawrence v. Texas. The bad news is that, depute Kennedy’s “wondering” about employees rights to contraception, his questioning was firmly in the Krazee Korner with Scalia and Alito. Also, if it comes down to it, I can easily see Roberts declaring “barriers to birth control no longer exist”, putting those rights on the same funeral pyre he threw discrimination on when SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act.
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I feel nauseous thinking about this decision.
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I just have a bad feeling that they are going to continue their “corporations are people” dogma with “corporations can follow a specific religion.”
Bummed just thinking about it.
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Actually, corporations already have Constitutional rights. See the Slaughterhouse Cases from 1873. The issue here is more subtle than that, though no one seems to have framed it this way. The question is whether the owners of a corporation can pierce their own corporate veil.
Piercing the corporate veil, getting to the shareholders of a corporation personally for liability purposes, is difficult by design. There are a number of factors a court looks at–undercapitalization, failure to comply with the minimum formalities like board meetings and minutes, etc.
But here, the owners want to say "hey, we want to pierce our own veil and make the religious beliefs of the owners the beliefs of the fictitious person who protects us from liability.
And I must say I have a bad feeling about this . . .
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The court will vote 5-4 for Hobby Lobby. Now lets see how they will rule when Christian Scientists and Jehovah’s Witnesses bring the same kind of case before them.
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Are we to take anything Roberts says as being grounded in the real world?
I swear he sounds like a jr. high kid who doesn’t fathom the consequences of
stealing his mother’s car, having a few beers and driving over the speed limit
on the highway in a rainstorm. This man doesn’t think racism is still an issue.
And no buffer zones at women’s clinics?! Republican governors closing said clinics.
Guess which way this one will go . . . . . Ladies and gentleman–behold all of us
American women being knifed by SCOTUS. And by the way—thanks to all the
women on the bench for okaying crazed right to lifers to get up in other women’s
faces.
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Thing is, if you allow it for closely held companies than bigger ones would be next. Because if corporations are getting the rights of people than they have equal protection under the law. As stupid as that sounds.
Oddly, it also, would interestingly, destroy corporate law. The whole thing was set up so that the company is a separate entity from the person in charge so the liabilities are different. However, if the rights of the owner are shared by the company than the distinction would be gone. I doubt that this court would care but it is a big problem.
I feel that they are going to rule for HL here. The impact would really potentially be various religious right groups and law firms challenging nearly everything on obscure religious grounds. Real or imagined. I think that is the potential danger of this case. That the conservative justices are not concerned about that is not a shock. Given their opinions so far they really give their opinions and then try to mask it with some odd reading of the Constitution that usually was not even true when they wrote the thing.
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Unless my memory is off, what it actually boils down to is how Kennedy votes. As usual.
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Muslims - Their employees can’t use their pay checks for alcohol or pork.
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The worse court in my 72 year history!
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Interesting way to think about it. My instincts are telling me the opposite, though. I don’t see Alito and Roberts wanting to open this can of worms. If one accepts the logic that corporations have religious rights and cannot be compelled to obey business regulations because of those rights, then you have to be prepared to flood the courts with lawsuits for at least a decade, probably several, to cope with such a fundamental redefinition and expansion of corporate law.
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The closely held company thing is a red herring. It becomes far too messy trying to distinguish what is closely held, when does it stop being closely held and become public, and, by trying to make that distinction, they would be penalizing closely held companies wanting to go public.
If they rule in favor of Hobby Lobby, they are granting huge rights to a closely held corporation, thus introducing into the calculations, a loss of rights (power) into the equation for going public. Is the value of going public worth the loss of the ability to ignore local, state and federal regulations based on “religious” beliefs?
So while Roberts may try to draft something to that effect in his opinion, it won’t pass scrutiny and will be expanded upon very quickly to include all corporations.
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I am going out on a limb and predict Hobby Lobby will lose. Reading the RFRA, it says:>
Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except as provided in subsection (b) EXCEPTION. – Government may burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person –
(1) furthers a compelling governmental interest; and
(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
It says a PERSON’S, not a corporation or a Chapter S Corporation. The Supreme Court conservatives may dislike Obama, but I doubt they will go down this road.They will never get the genie back in the bottle if they do.
Text of the RFRA: http://www.prop1.org/rainbow/rfra.htm
I told my employees that Hobby Lobby wins, I won’t be able to provide a lot of health insurance because so many of them are unsaved. They’re great workers, but why should I be paying for their problems brought upon by their refusal to accept grace?
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Hell, I want an itemized list of what you pay for with the money I’ve paid you, just to be sure you’re not buying anything I morally object to.
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