Can the Supreme Court Understand a Person's Soul?

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/03/can-the-supreme-court-understand-a-persons-soul/359652/

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On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in two big cases about religious freedom and contraception coverage, Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood v. Sebelius. Both cases ask the same question: Can the Affordable Care Act require for-profit companies to include contraception in their employee insurance plans, even if the owners think using birth control is morally wrong?

The intense back-and-forth between the justices and the lawyers who made arguments revealed that this question is incredibly complex, involving a lot of case law and, as one lawyer put it, some "loosey-goosey analysis."

But one of the more interesting, somewhat hidden questions is whether a justice can trade her robe for a cassock. As Sonia Sotomayor pointed out, the court has traditionally refrained from trying to figure out what's in someone's heart—if a person claims to have a certain belief, the court takes that claim at face value. But she also pointed out that this makes it nearly impossible to determine whether a company like Conestoga Wood or Hobby Lobby is actually "religious."

"Let's assume a business that sells five percent of religious books, doesn't play Christmas music, doesn't give off ... Sunday, you know, does nothing else religiously," Sotomayor said. "That's the most dangerous piece. That's the one we've resisted in all our exercise jurisprudence: to measure the depth of someone's religious beliefs."

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Arrghhh.

Businesses are NOT persons.

If even Sotomayor is talking about this case as if this case in terms of whether or not a business is 'religious' rather than simply the humans who own it and make decisions about it being religious, I think we've effectively lost, even if this particular case seems to 'come out well'.

Corporations are NOT people, my friend.

[el_bryanto]

4. I think she agrees - but she has to argue where the law is now

Judges "created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons," she (Sotomayor) said. "There could be an argument made that that was the court's error to start with...[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics."

From Chris Anderson at the Daily Kos.

But she has to deal with what the current set up is, and corporate personhood, for the moment, seems settled law. Another reason we need to get a majority on the Court.

Bryant

[daleanime]

2. K&R....

[SamKnause]

3. Corporations are NOT people !!!!

I don't care if the Supreme Court has ruled they are.

Corporations are NOT people.

Money is NOT speech.

I don't care if the Supreme Court has ruled it is.

Money is NOT speech.

I have very little faith in our Supreme Court.

I find nothing supreme about them, other than being supremely out of touch and supremely wrong on so many issues.

[JJChambers]

5. Whether or not you want to believe it doesn't matter

The supremes say it and thus, for all intents and purposes, it is so.

[SamKnause]

7. It matters to me.

It is not my personal belief, it is a fact.

Corporations are NOT people. (Corporations do not have a bodies, blood, organs, bones, etc.)

Money is NOT speech. (A person without a penny can give a speech. Can a mute person give a speech if they are wealthy ? No.)

Hopefully in the future these intentional assaults on the rights of the people will be corrected.

If the Supreme Court ruled 2+2=5 that would NOT make it factual.

It would become law for all intents and purposes, but it would be an intentional falsehood.

[JJChambers]

9. Your belief doesn't make reality; their decision does

[SamKnause]

11. Clearly you do not understand

the difference between belief and facts.

Argue with someone else.

[JJChambers]

12. Clearly you're not very pragmatic

Disagree all you want, but they make the reality we live with.

[tkmorris]

13. Are you always so quarrelsome?

It seems abundantly clear the poster you keep responding to knows that the USSC decision will be the legal standard. Yes, if they say that for 1st amendment purposes corporations are effectively "people", that is what we have to live with.

The point is that the USSC has the power to rule on these things they do not in fact create REALITY. They could for example rule that certain people are in effect worth 3/5 what others are. This does NOT make it so, it simply means that our justice system will pretend it is until such time as the USSC gets it's head out of it's collective ass and rules otherwise.

You are arguing semantics. For you, reality is whatever the USSC says it is. For the other poster, reality is fixed, and cannot be altered by mere rulings no matter how "Supreme". Both perspectives are valid, dependent on the individuals point of view. So why badger anyone about it? It's pointless.

[JJChambers]

15. I guess that all depends on your definition of "so"

They could for example rule that certain people are in effect worth 3/5 what others are. This does NOT make it so, it simply means that our justice system will pretend it is until such time as the USSC gets it's head out of it's collective ass and rules otherwise.

Is reality what we all know the decision should be, or is reality what we actually have to live with every day? Taking your hypothetical to an extreme to illustrate the point, let's say the supremes decide that slavery is actually constitutional and allow for slavery to be reinstated. We all know that is bullshit, but when those enslaved by the court's ruling have to deal with it, isn't that their reality?

[GeorgeGist]

6. Corporations have souls now?

[yortsed snacilbuper]

8. "Corporations have souls now?"

If they had one, they sold it to the devil!

[LuvNewcastle]

14. If I were on the Court, I'd ask the people who run Hobby Lobby

if their corporation has an afterlife, and if so, will it go to heaven or hell? If they say it won't, I think it's pretty clear that under their belief system, a corporation cannot be religious or non-religious and they have no argument.

[RKP5637]

10. So, by their logic, Hobby Lobby 'could', for example, refuse to cover LGBT people because they

offend their religion. It seems a slippery slope to me, once the door is open it seems a significant precedent is set.