Geraldine Ferraro was the Democratic Party’s candidate for Vice President in 1984. Now obviously that election was a blowout for the Republican Party but the fact is a woman was selected to be potentially a heartbeat away from the presidency thirty-six years ago.
I feel we’re approaching admiralty law and universal commercial code territory. And I don’t plan on going there.
I’ll just say that your interpretations of various legal terms are not ones that are shared by people within the American legal system.
Not really. The issue is settled, the Male pronoun is always presumed to include the female one as per king standing canons of statutory interpretation.
So more like thrown out with a polite note.
He is gay and I think Trump will be smart enough to avoid that directly.
Buttigieg was very deeply closeted and dated women when he was younger. That lends itself to the “depraves homo” trope and I fully expect Trump and his supporters to play that.
You poor, poor sea monkeys.
You just never will learn with this gender shit.
I have to come in here every few months to see how bad you’ve gotten.
No. Even without the US Code, the English language has always subsumed the feminine within the generic form of “he.” It doesn’t matter if you are Antonin Scalia or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when I say, “If a person drives on the interstate, he must obey the speed limit” that means men and women. No reasonable judge would say otherwise and to argue otherwise would get you laughed out of court.
That’ll earn you a warning, UnwittingAmericans. Could be for either threadshitting or insults. Who cares?
Don’t do it again.
Absent passage of the ERA, how have courts ruled on gender per the Constitution? No, I do NOT think women are excluded from certain offices whose occupants are referred to as “he” but I do wonder if literalist readings may be considered by courts.
That’s about human women. And nonhumans? Animals have been voted into local office in the US and commissioned as military officers in other countries, including Japan. Can an armadillo be a judge? And an organized group is a “person” in the US; what prevents the appointment or election of a corporation, charity, or glee club to government office?
I’ll admit if somebody called me a sea monkey, I’d feel more confused than insulted.
The same thing as the “he” question. It is clear from the text, the original meaning, or even the living and evolving meaning. An office holder must be a natural human being.
AFAIK, all of those animals that have been given awards or appointed to an office were done only in a ceremonial fashion for a nice news story because the animal did something positive. I mean, how could an armadillo be a judge? Are the parties and there attorneys actually going to attend court and watch the armadillo shit all over the bench? Are they actually going to speak to the armadillo and expect a response?
Also, this “corporations are people” thing. Yes, for many purposes in law a legal fiction is created where corporations are treated as people. That doesn’t mean we get all crazy with it and say that they are people for all purposes. They cannot marry each other, for example.
What courts have ruled on a “natural human being” requirement?
Judge Diller can be wired to respond, or can be replaced by a magic 8-ball. Have courts ruled on inhuman beings or inanimate devices (like AIs) holding office?
Have any corporations attempted marriage? Isn’t a merger effectively the same?
Well, analogous in some respects, but not the same.
For example, in most jurisdictions a marriage may be voided if it is not consummated. How would two corporations consummate their “marriage”?
There’s something similar that happens in hostile takeovers, but it’s more of a metaphorical thing and only happens to one of the corporations.
Yes, metaphorical. No exchanges of bodily fluids involved.
I think, with respect, that you are being overly literal with this whole “corporations are people” concept. No court has ever ruled on whether Microsoft can run for Congress or marry Apple because nobody would make such an absurd argument. A corporate merger is not a marriage by any definition. AIs are not people by any law. Animals are not people.
Corporations are people as a legal fiction only for the purposes that we recognize as the reasons why we created corporations in the first place, primarily limited liability in a business endeavor where an individual or group of individuals would be particularly foolish to expose themselves and their personal finances to garnishment by everyone in the world. There is a whole body of corporate law and its justifications that cannot be summarized in one post, thread, or even an entire article. “Corporations are people” is a short hand attempt to explain some of the law’s protections.
But it doesn’t mean that they are people in the sense that they love, grieve, marry, hold office, take a dump in the morning, or get too drunk after the Super Bowl. The analogy, like all analogies, cannot be extended to infinity.