I don’t agree.
Can you explain specifically why “religious freedom” requires “religious belief?”
What, specifically, is the definition of “religious freedom?”
I have no idea.
Of course, this question introduces another variable – to what EXTENT a corporation’s religious freedom may go.
But surely you can see that a corporation is not a necessary element. Let’s imagine a sole proprietorship: a single man owns a business, unincorporated. If he is a Muslim, can he require his female staff to wear niqabs?
Now we see the answer is: maybe. It depends on what the job is.
Hooters has a dress code. Not sure why another business couldn’t require niqabs.
“Socrates” is not actually working toward a real point. He’s just jerking you around. Which he can only do because you’re letting him.
Did someone just say “Socrates”? What? What about him?
My signature proves that I am a Socrates fanboy.
Okay, fine, but you’re still wrong. And at this point, all you’re doing is repeating the same unconvincing legalistic nitpicks that you originally offered in lieu of a persuasive argument.
Well, religious freedom as human beings exercise it requires religious belief because religious belief is the essence of religion. As James Madison put it,
“Free exercise of religion” as it applies to human beings implies the human attributes of “conviction and conscience”: i.e., the ability to hold a personal belief. A corporation, as you admit, doesn’t and cannot have those attributes, so a corporation cannot enjoy the same “free exercise of religion” as humans do.
Like I said, if you want to use a related term such as “corporate religious freedom” to designate corporate business practices that are determined by their owners’ religious beliefs, no problem. But it’s silly to try to pretend that corporations have the same sort of religious freedom that human beings do, or that religious freedom as human beings exercise it is not based on the concept of human religious belief.
A disparaging reference to a certain “Pseudosocrates” not a million miles away from this thread, who sometimes falls into the error of confusing disingenuous quibbling with genuine reasoned debate.
I understand that you’re not persuaded. But that’s not quite the same as labeling the argument unconvincing – after all, others have been persuaded.
Those others include the court considering Tyndale’s motion:
You may continue to speak disparagingly of “legalistic nitpicks” if you wish. But the thing is – we’re talking about a court case. And in a court case, oddly enough, legalistic nitpicks often have persuasive value.
So: both the Ninth Circuit and the current Hobby Lobby court have accepted the rationale that a corporation has FREEDOM under the RELIGIOUS FREEDOM Restoration Act to assert the beliefs of its owners.
Why should I care in the least if you find that reasoning unconvincing? Why should any reader of this thread care? Readers of this thread may be interested in what the courts find convincing, because that will shape both future caselaw as well as determine the outcome of the very controversy which animates this thread.
I think that this is a needlessly narrow definition. Not that my opinion matters much either, since I’m not sitting on the bench deciding these cases.
But this definition you propose treats religion as mystical. Some religions are indeed primarily mystical – Christianity comes to mind. But Judaism, in contrast, is an ethical religion, concerned much more with how you behave rather than what you believe. Observing the mitzvoth is a matter of action, not belief.
So – not that it matters – but I absolutely reject your attempt to shoehorn “religious freedom” into something that requires belief.
More to the point, I can cite federal circuit caselaw which agrees that a corporation has the freedom to assert its owners’ religious beliefs, and that this freedom gives a corporation standing under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. If you wish to contest the claim that a corporation is free to act under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but that this doesn’t mean it has religious freedom… well, you go right ahead.
I never said I found it unconvincing. I just pointed out that a corporation’s being free to assert the beliefs of its owners is not the same thing as having the same religious freedom that actual human beings have.
Which is still true, no matter how much you try to tapdance around it.
Nice try at moving the goalposts, but the type of religious freedom that human beings have does in fact require belief.
Of course, I never denied (in fact, I repeatedly pointed out) that you can legitimately define a different type of religious freedom that properly applies to corporations, which are not capable of having belief.
But you already know that, and are merely trying to cloud the issue by pretending I said something I didn’t.
I think you must have meant to say “admit” the claim. Because of course I never have denied that a corporation is free to act under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
And it still doesn’t mean that corporations have the same sort of religious freedom that human beings do.
Consequently, it is still true that RNATB was not incorrectly conflating freedom with belief, as you asserted.
When did the claim morph into corporations having “the same sort” of religious freedom as humans?
RNATB asked how corporations could possibly have any claim to religious freedom.
Now, you are indignantly denying that corporations have the same sort of religious freedom as humans.
I agree that corporations do not have the same sort of religious freedom as humans.
I do not agree with the implication of this quote:
(Emphasis added).
In which he was clearly speaking of religious freedom in the sense that humans exercise it: in his own words, “because a corporation cannot hold a religious belief”.
What corporations have is the freedom to assert the religious beliefs of their owners. Religious freedom as it is generally understood is a right of human beings which does not consist in being free to assert the religious beliefs of their owners, because humans don’t have owners but they do have beliefs.
Good.
Of course, you could have just acknowledged that RNATB in the first place, along the lines of “Well, while corporations don’t have the same sort of religious freedom as humans, it can reasonably argued that they do have a claim to a different sort of religious freedom, in that they can assert the religious beliefs of their owners.”
But no, you had to play your usual vocabulary-gotcha game of deliberately using a technical term in a different sense from the way somebody else was clearly using it, and then acting all faux-puzzled that the other person did not immediately concur with your interpretation of the term.
And as usual, you had to spin out your nitpicking for some additional dozen posts or so before finally admitting that you understood all along the sense in which the term was being used by others. You just prefer dragging out all ambiguities of interpretation as long as possible rather than pointing them out explicitly to clear them up as soon as you encounter them; apparently because it lets you cherish a sense of superiority during the interval when you’re the only one who knows what you mean.
I doubt we’ll ever be able to break you of that irritating and pointless habit, Bricker, but at least it’s some satisfaction to know that you realize that nobody’s falling for it.
Yes, my point was to moot the question about its existence. No answer to the underlying needed or given.
True. What if the owners saw one of the staff outside the store without a niqab and determined they were of insufficient moral character to continue working for the corporation?
What utter horseshit.
If that were so, why the attempts to distinguish between a non-profit corporation and a for-profit corporation? If your theory were the truth, then even a non-profit corporation cannot be said to have any religious freedom (in the sense that humans do). But RNATB clearly advanced an argument in which he distinguished for-profit and non-profit corporate entities. How does that fit into your crafted fairytale?
I advanced two arguments: the latter acknowledges that the law may (and does) grant corporations religious freedom, though the concept is inconsistent with logic and reason. The first is based on the idea that they shouldn’t.
Do you believe that Kimstu’s defense of your argument is correct, and captures the nuance that you were actually arguing two different points?
My initial question to you was based on the existing caselaw. I am interested in what the law of the land is.
When, as here, we have differing results reached by different courts, with no clear guidance from the Supreme Court, I am interested in your view of what the court decision ultimately will be, based on your ability to understand and apply legal concepts to the issues in play.
When you share a seemingly definitive offering like, “How can [Hobby Lobby] possibly have any claim to religious freedom?” I am interested in seeing you defend it as a matter of law. If that was simply your opinion of what the law should be, then I think you gave it much more emphasis than an unsupported opinion deserves.
In short, I’m interested in seeing you argue like a lawyer.
If I had asserted that the sky is blue, I would have been unable to support my position with case law. That would not have undermined the validity of my statement.
Let me ask you this: do you dispute that a corporation is not inherently capable of holding a religious belief (as opposed to enjoying some sort of freedom of exercise based on the beliefs of its owners)?
No, I don’t dispute that. And if you had said that, I wouldn’t have taken issue with you.
But here is what you said:
The word “belief” does not appear in your quote. The word “freedom” does.
A corporation does have religious freedom – even though it doesn’t have any religious beliefs. It can act to express its owners’ religious beliefs, and be protected in those by guarantees of religious freedom. You now acknowledge this – why do you keep returning to questions that ask me about belief held directly by a corporation?
It would have undermined your abilities at legal research.
US v. Martinez-Cintron, 136 F. Supp. 2d 17 (Dist Court, Dist of PR 2001) at FN1:
Hardly. I did actually do the research - because I knew you would - and chose not to quote that opinion because it was presumably not deciding an issue argued by the parties. Same goes for Tyler v. Heywood, 8 Neb. App. 553, 562-63, 598 N.W.2d 73, 79 (Neb. Ct. App. 1999) rev’d, 258 Neb. 901, 607 N.W.2d 186 (2000).
Because we are not talking about religious freedom in the abstract. The Hobby Lobby litigation is apparently a constitutional claim, not one premised on statute. The corporation has no constitutional right to free expression - though the legislature could have given it one.
True enough – and I agree you’re unlikely to find a case in which the sky’s color was an ultimate issue of fact.
But again you miss the specifics of what you say:
In both quoted cases, the proposition that the sky is blue is offered as an example of a commonly known, clearly established fact, something – should it be necessary – of which a court could take judicial notice. In other words, it absolutely COULD support your position.
First – what difference does it make if the religious freedom is grounded in statute or the constitution?
Nothing in your quote about constitutional freedoms as opposed to freedoms granted by statute, is there?
Let’s test this theory: a natural person, according to you, has constitutionally grounded freedom of religion. What claim could he assert that Hobby Lobby cannot?
Nor do I even concede the claim that a corporation does not have constitutionally-guaranteed religious freedom. A corporation clearly has other constitutional rights, rights also found in the First Amendment: freedom of speech, for example. I don’t see any authority for the claim that a corporation cannot claim First Amendment religious protection.