It does, actually.
The point about suing Hobby Lobby rather than a bunch of people who happen to be the stockholders in Hobby Lobby, or suing the United States rather than a bunch of people who happen to be the citizens of the United States is not just convenience and not having to have a long list of names. If you sue Hobby Lobby you are not finding a convenient shorthand for naming the stockholders as defendants, and if you get a judgment against Hobby Lobby you cannot enforce it against the stockholders; you can seize assets owned by the corporation to satisfy your judgment, but not assets owned by the stockholders. The corporation is not its stockholders. In the same way, the United States is not its citizens.
Yes, the United States has legal personality, and so does Hobby Lobby. The US, Hobby Lobby and John Citizen can all own property, for example or institute legal proceedings, because they are all persons. Fluffy the Cat, by contrast, is not a person can can do none of these things.
That’s not to say that all persons can do everything. Natural persons can marry, for instance, or vote in federal elections. Corporate persons can do neither of these things.
You can argue about what the distinctions should be between natural persons and corporate persons, and in particular you can argue about whether a corporate person enjoys first amendment rights, including the right to free exercise of religion. My not-very-intensive study of commentary about this judgment suggests that HL was found to have this right in this instance at least in part because it was a closely-held family corporation. I’m not necessarily convinced, but I can see the point. Certainly I’m open to persuasion that there is a class of corporations which can legitimately claim free exercise rights; a monastery, for instance, if incorporated, or a church diocese or synagogue congregation would be obvious examples.
I remain of the view that the fundamental problem here has nothing to do with legal personality or even with free exercise; it has to do with a societal decision that employers shall be involved in making decisions about the provision of healthcare for their employees. There is no good reason why this should be so and - as the case illustrates - at least one good reason why it shouldn’t.
If you think this decision will stop at abortions you are very naive. I can guarantee you that corporate lawyers are even now spending many billable hours looking into religious precedents that will allow to evade regulations of all sorts. All forms of birth control will be refused, as well as a lot of other things. You are going to see corporate piety like you’ve never seen it before! Any religious belief that lets corporations evade regulations will be professed with great devotion.
Why would the corporations do that? It generally costs more to buy a health insurance plan that doesn’t provides birth control than one which does (because maternity benefits cost a lot more than birth control benefits). Whatever reason companies have for refusing to buy plans which include birth control, saving money is not one. And since most companies are in fact focussed on the bottom line, most of them will not be going out of the way to increase their health insurance costs.
Is that because you think he wouldn’t be familiar with the concept or that he’d think you were insane for asking such a silly question?
The corporate concept was around long before James Madison was born.
Let the flood waters flow, baby! I think the majority opinion was a bit of a cop-out for political reasons, all that jive about it being a narrow decision. I believe (1) it was a logical, textual, supportable decision–absolutely correct–and (2) its logic applies to most of the parade of horribles people are currently gasping in dismay over (refusing to pay for blood transfusions, etc.). That’s what RFRA (and the Dictionary Act) result in, the plain English of them. Perhaps a weak argument against this reading is possible, but I can’t fathom how anyone can read those laws and assign partisan, legislative-activist motives to the majority here. “But think of all the bad stuff that might occur if we read the laws as written!” That’s not SCOTUS’s job. If the law is constitutional, then it’s up to Congress to determine if the legislation produces a desired effect. They can always fix it, after all.
All the hand-wringing over the potential effect of this law seems to miss the fact that if you take exception with how this will play out, your complaint is with Congress, who crafted the legislation. I shouldn’t be amazed, but I continue to be, over how many people think SCOTUS’s job is to produce a particular outcome or social policy, as opposed to determining what is lawful (whether or not the law is godawful). There is a solution if you believe this requires one, and it’s not to gnash your teeth over SCOTUS. Change the law.
[QUOTE=Smapti]
Go back and ask James Madison what a corporation is. He’d look at you like you were insane.
[/QUOTE]
He might ask about the term itself, but then go “Oh, I see, something akin to our good East India Company, yes ? Which has its own army, navy and is, in some parts of the world, also a de facto sovereign country ? Good lads, keen on pacifying the Hindoo and cleansing the pirate scum from our waters, I’m given to understand. What was your problem again ?”
I think this touches on the absurdity of HL’s position. One purpose of incorporating is to separate out the corporation from the people running it. This shields the owners from liability.
So, if Hobby Lobby gets sued, the owners will hide behind their corporate shield, and argue that they as people are completely separate from the “person” that is Hobby Lobby. Which makes it seem absurd that, with something as personal as religious beliefs, they want to argue that they and the corporation are really one and the same.
The blatant selfishness of the lawsuit, their arrogance and misogyny, and the hypocrisy of HL that has been detailed in other threads, are the reasons that people are so pissed off. Even if one (or five) can read RFRA in a certain way that agrees with HL’s claims, it’s still an evil exploitation of a loophole that oppresses and degrades women.
So, in answer to the OP, the remedy for me is to never set foot in one of their stores again.
Do you have a prediction about what kind of trend Hobby Lobby will see in terms of sales?
In other words, do you predict that Hobby Lobby’s revenue will increase, decrease, stay flat - what?
For a large segment of the population, this is not an option.
The grotesque tragedy of the Supreme Court’s decision is that the people who need subsidized health care the most are almost by definition the same people who don’t have the luxury of choosing their employer and are also the least capable of absorbing the expenses of an unplanned pregnancy.
Nationwide, I expect their revenue to stay roughly flat. Most people won’t change their habits, and there will be a few like me who stop shopping there, and a few who start shopping there to support them.
Now, my local Hobby Lobby, I expect to get a big bump in revenue. If the offensive zeal of people that work in my building organizing mass lunch outings to Chik-Fil-A is any indication, I expect to start seeing a lot of crafty shit on peoples’ desks pretty soon. But that’s my fault for living in Indiana.
Thanks.
Certainly expressing your dislike of their stance by boycotting them is absolutely appropriate. But I appreciate your insight.
As I noted further up the thread its unlikely that Congress will be willing to do anything about the issue for years. Obviously repealing or rewriting the RFRA is the very best course, but it’s not gonna happen anytime soon. Doesn’t mean we cannot or should not pressure legislators to change it, but it’s gonna be hell, ESPECIALLY if corporations are successful in using it as an end-around for government regulation. Then you’ll have religious fanatics, hateful misogynists and large, wealthy corporations united behind not changing the RFRA.
I wonder if individual states can pass laws that end-around the RFRA. Blue states might be able to legislate themselves out of the hole created by the RFRA.
Not much of a solution at this point, though I would be happy to see Hobby Lobby driven to bankruptcy in short order. The Supreme Court decision on RFRA is here with us whether Hobby Lobby exists or not.
The encouraging thing is that, according to this thread, a slight change of wording to either RFRA or ACA would invalidate this decision. While the current congress certainly isn’t going to do that, at least we don’t need a constitutional amendment, or to wait for a change in the makeup of the court. If congress gets sane in the future they can fix this easily. (Although if the RFRA were to be amended, I would expect Hobby Lobby to re-file on 1st amendment grounds, and this court would probably find for them.)
I’m hoping for a broad and lasting anti-religion backlash, myself.
I think this is the most pernicious aspect of the decision. The government can clearly set up a separate exchange or program to pay for any particular thing that whoever finds objectionable - the birth control program shows that. Why can’t they do the same for vaccine coverage? Or blood transfusion coverage? Clearly this is possible, and by the Court’s logic it’s less burdensome on whomever is making the religious claims.
If the Court doesn’t expand this ruling, then what it really stands for is that Reasonable Religious Beliefs - which coincidentally and conveniently happen to be shared by the five members of the Court in the majority - will be afforded extraordinary protection. Whereas silly religious beliefs, such as objecting to vaccinations - which strangely enough aren’t held by members of the Court - are not. The Court shouldn’t be in the business of granting religious privileges to particular sorts who believe the right things, and I fear that this may be where we end up with this. I’d rather see all kinds of parade of horribles result, it might inspire Congress to actually fix this mess.
For what it’s worth, I agree with the dissent that this result is unintentional, and further that it’s a bad idea, but while I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “absolutely correct” the majority decision is textually justified.
No need to wonder: they can.
The RFRA’s language applies both to the states and to the federal government, but the Supremes ruled several years ago that trying to apply it against the states exceeds Congress’ enumerated powers under the Constitution. So the states are not bound by the federal RFRA.