General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf you agree that corporations are not people, then you must also agree that religious organizations
are not people either. The result of this is that non-people corporations and religious organizations do not have Constitutional rights.
No one persons freedom of religion would be infringed by ensuring employers (in this case, it was a religious organization) must abide by the law. No individual Catholic that is opposed to contraception would ever be forced to dispense or take it, ergo no civil liberty infringement.
I think the Dems/Liberals missed a big opportunity to continue with the "corporations are not people" meme and give it more traction for a Constitutional Amendment.
Deep13
(39,154 posts)Religious employers have no right to dictate how their employees believe or act. If employer health insurance generally covers birth control--and it does--religious employers must not be exempted because of their purported irrational beliefs about how reproduction works.
jody
(26,624 posts)cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Only people are people, and only people have rights.
jody
(26,624 posts)individuals and enforcement of contracts.
I wouldn't mind religions being classified as "people" if I could also be classified as a religion and enjoy all the benefits of being a religion.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)I feel that classifying anything other than people as people will only turn out badly.
jody
(26,624 posts)an inalienable/unalienable right. SCOTUS acknowledged those rights preexisted words on a piece of paper and in no way depending upon them for legitimacy.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)in the constitution while the others' is not
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)I'm not following you.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)there is no mention of corporate money in political campaigns.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Sometimes, things need to be made crystal clear. I think this is one of those times.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)Single greatest mistakes in our history.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Now, how do we go about fixing that mistake?
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)or if a constitutional amendment would be needed.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)Catholics may use contraception as much as (or even perhaps more) than non-Catholics, but their guilt structure revolves around the knowledge that there are men who are "holier" than they are, and they actively support the hypocrisy of defending their bishops and cardinals right to deny something that they themselves do.
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)Many rights in the Constitution are conferred upon a "person", the term used most notably in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment (applicable to the federal government) and the Fourteenth Amendment (applicable to the states). Thus, for example, no level of government may take a person's property arbitrarily. (As an aside, this is an important protection that should apply to corporations, and Citizens United should be changed without undercutting this basic principle. The better approach is to recognize that spending vast sums is conduct, not just speech, and that political spending by corporations and by natural persons can be regulated.)
The First Amendment, however, doesn't use the word "person". The Founding Fathers weren't aware of multimillion-dollar media campaigns for public office, but they certainly were aware of religious organizations. The interpretation you suggest ("non-people corporations and religious organizations do not have Constitutional rights" would have astounded and horrified them.
The real issue here is that the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause, which usually work well together to ensure the separation of church and state, do sometimes come into conflict. This is one such instance. The courts have always had to engage in balancing acts. In this instance, an important factor is the one you identify -- that the infringement on free exercise is fairly minimal (though not nonexistent).