Posted on 03/25/2014 9:03:08 PM PDT by Beave Meister
In a dramatic moment at the Supreme Court Tuesday, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told justices that U.S. business owners have no religious freedom to reject government mandates forcing them to cover abortions.
Justices and lawyers also sparred over whether businesses actually have religious freedom and whether striking down the Obamacare mandate makes women second-class citizens.
The notable abortion exchange between Verrilli and Justice Anthony Kennedy came during oral arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius, two cases linked by the companies’ owners objecting to the Department of Health and Human Services requirement that businesses fully cover the contraception costs for their employees. That mandate includes coverage of abortafacient drugs, also known as the “morning-after pill.”
Family Research Council Senior Fellow for Legal Studies Cathy Ruse was in the gallery during oral arguments and said that was the most remarkable moment in the court session Tuesday.
“This was actually the most exciting part of the oral argument this morning, when Justice Kennedy asked the government’s lawyer, ‘So under your argument, corporations could be forced to pay for abortions, that there would be no religious claim against that on the part of the corporation. Is that right?’ And the government’s attorney said yes,” Ruse said.
“You could hear a pin drop, and I think that stunned Justice Kennedy. Since he’s always the swing vote, you want to stun him in a way that pushes him over to your side of the column,” she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.wnd.com ...
all business exists for the benefit of the state, then.
time to start the revolt if they win. can’t live free under such a wicked, twisted government.
we’ll make some extra needed changes to the constitution to prevent such tyranny from occurring again. no justices for life. term limits on all fed offices. no alphabet agencies with any power to create regs with the power of law. no hundreds of thousands of armed federal agents. back to dc limits for them.
Can indeed have it both ways - because corporations are given privileges that are based SOLELY on the needs of the State. If those privileges imitate rights, fine. If they don't - fine too. But the consistancy of corporate rulings has nothing to do with their comparison to rights - only to State needs. So you're making a false comparison.
corporations are not inanimate objects, they are owned and run by people. And those people have opinions and beliefs that should be safe from government coercion
And the Court ruled in Citizens United that corporations have free speech rights vis-a-vis campaign contributions.
Is it a stretch that the Court might also rule that corpoations have freedom of religion? I think not ...
All corporations exist for the needs of the State, because legally they are extensions of the State and find their creation in the State - that's why they can be taxed and regulated BY the State.
But corporations are not businesses. Corporations can DO business, but they ARE created by the State for the purposes of the State. As such, they offer a certain level of indemnification that many people find appealing - and so, in incorporating, they make their deal with the devil.
I'm not denying that evil people use this construction for evil ends. I'm just saying that their is, indeed, a structure to it, and strict rules it follows. And it is voluntary, and it is NOT the same as human beings working together in an UNincorporated business.
Look at your own words - "owned and run by." But WHAT is "owned and run by?" What is that THING that is owned and run? Is it a business?
NO.
It is a corporation, a LEGAL ENTITY, that is created to DO business by having human beings own and run it. A corporation is a thing in it's own right, under the law. And it is that thing - and that thing ONLY - that is subject to the laws.
And that means that if people work in order to own and run that thing, and do business THROUGH that thing, then they can be treated as "corporate individuals" and LOSE THEIR RIGHTS - and accept the limitations of corporate privilege and corporate law.
In return, they get a certain level of indimnification from the corporation. That's the deal they VOLUNTEER to accept.
“Chief Justice Roberts raised the point that corporations can actually file racial discrimination claims. So he said if a corporation can have a race, why can’t it have a religious claim? The government’s attorney didn’t really have an answer for that,” Ruse said."
Here you go:
“U.S. business owners have no religious freedom to reject government mandates forcing them to cover abortions.”
viz- “Bank of Whittier, a tiny community bank in Los Angeles that specializes in financing for Muslims who want to comply with Islamic anti-usury laws that prohibit the paying or charging of interest.
The bank, whose staffers speak more than a dozen languages, markets itself to observant Muslim entrepreneurs trying to stay within the boundaries of Shariah, or Islamic law. Its clients include owners of gas stations, supermarkets, and restaurants.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-06/halal-financing-for-muslim-entrepreneurs-gains-currency
one law for us, one law for moslems -
This is gonna stop soon like an ice cream truck on an icy road.
sole proprietor
partnership
llc
corporation
ect...
all they are are ways of structuring ones business. In many cases for the sole reason of limiting liability.
I see no compelling reason that someone who owns a widget factory who incorporates it has any fewer rights than he would if he ran it has a sole proprietorship.
Thank you...
Yes, it's fascism. So what? That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Think - exactly how are those interests you listed protected? By indemnification, that's how. But think it through - why shouldn't they be fully responsible, personally, for what they do in business? Why not? In fact, under common law, there is absolutely no reason why not, and such people were sued in their personal capacities for harm they did through their businesses.
So the corporation was created to privide that indemnification - and it's mechanism is to be an extension of the incorporated government, owned and operated by private individuals who agree to run it under corporate operation laws and be TAXED by corporate tax laws.
How is that fascism? How is it not, rather a form of fraud, whereby people get to harm others by their work, but not get sued because they wave an incorporation paper at their victims, while people operating the same type of business which doesn't have that piece of paper get sued in their individual capacities? What legal process makes this transformation possible, and legal?
The ver word incorporation MEANS to "bring into the body." Well, into the body of what? The incorporated State, that's what - which then gets the right to tax the incorporated business in return for limited indemnification.
Corporations are collections of individuals uniting to operate a joint business. If individuals do not have the right to act collectively then there are no rights.
But I thought that the court had said corporations are people in the Citizens United case.
By that definition, there isn’t a single marriage in the US that isn’t a corporation. As such, why is there spousal privilege?
I know we filed our license with the secretary of state, which made our property community, and gave each other power of attorney over each of us individually.
That’s a company. A not-for-profit company, but certainly a company.
SCOTUS already ruled corporations are entitled to speech the same as any individual citizen. Are we not splitting 1A in half for companies here? You can speak, but not about God?
So, if I took 10 percent of my profit, and gave it to a church, isn’t that a form of speech, same as if I gave my money to a PAC?
Wouldn’t that be looked at by the church as tithing, and thus, prayer?
A sole proprietorship is a form of informal incorporation. So is a partnership and LLC. Each of those terms is described in detail in the tax code, and have specific individual corporate identities and requirements - and tax rates.
But just human beings making and selling products? You will not find that phrase in the tax code.
These terms are the basis of administrative law. Whether you “drive” or “travel” is two different things. Yes, it’s bullsh!t - but it’s how it works. It’s a word game, and a presumption game, and it’s played deadly serious by the government. It’s why cops and lawyers and judges and bureaucrats talk the way they do - so stilted and weird. Notice in the article - the writer says “business.” But what does the Justice ask about in his question? Corporations. Not businesses - corporations.
No, it ruled that they can be treated as persons. And everyone thought that that meant what you said. But a "person" is a human being with corporate responsibilities, and so had been given a different set of privileges from the corporation that they worked for. Citizens United ruled that or the purposes of political involvement, the the corporation can be given the same privileges as a person working in a corporate capacity.
Dense? Yep. But not tangled - very specific.
Stop quoting the left’s parody version of Citizens United. The majority’s reasoning did not depend on the legal fiction that a corporation is a person — only one of the dissenters mentioned the notion of a corporation as a juridical person in a snarky passage attacking the majority’s holding. The majority held that the right of people to engage in political speech is not somehow attenuated or abolished by virtue of the people organizing into a corporation. The right of a corporation to engage in political speech is the right of its shareholders (or members) to engage in political speech. The same ought to apply here: the right of free exercise of religion is not somehow attenuated or abolished by virtue of the fact the natural persons engage in commerce as a corporation.
Thank you for the clarification.
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