If you agree that corporations are not people, then you must also agree that religious organizations

[cleanhippie]

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]

1. exactly

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]

2. Isn't there a difference between corporations as people and non-profit institutions as people? nt

[cleanhippie]

3. Not that I see.

Only people are people, and only people have rights.

[jody]

4. Agree re rights but aren't some differences, e.g. marriage vs same-sex union seems to mix rights of

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]

5. While I can see your point...

I feel that classifying anything other than people as people will only turn out badly.

[jody]

9. IMO the next amendment to our Constitution would be to prohibit anything other than a person having

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]

6. except one's freedom is enumerated

in the constitution while the others' is not

[cleanhippie]

7. What do you mean?

I'm not following you.

[arely staircase]

8. Freedom of religion is in the constitution

there is no mention of corporate money in political campaigns.

[cleanhippie]

10. True, but legal precedent has given corporate money the equivalency of speech.

Sometimes, things need to be made crystal clear. I think this is one of those times.

[arely staircase]

11. I believe that may have been one of the

Single greatest mistakes in our history.

[cleanhippie]

12. I think you are right.

Now, how do we go about fixing that mistake?

[arely staircase]

13. don't know if legislation would do it

or if a constitutional amendment would be needed.

[customerserviceguy]

14. Here's what a lot of people here are missing

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]

15. As a matter of U.S. Constitutional law, I completely disagree.

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&quot 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).