Now that the Supreme Court has given Corporations the status
of personhood with religious beliefs, what next?
The Religious Right Wing of the Republican Party is very
happy with the five justices that decided on the Hobby Lobby case. They see it as a victory for religious
freedom because the owners of Hobby Lobby are devout Christians who see some
forms of birth control as actually being forms of abortion and thus a violation
of the owners’ conscience.
The odd part of the ruling, as I understand it, is that it
grants personhood to the corporation itself, because the ruling says that the Hobby
Lobby corporation cannot be forced to offer insurance coverage for birth
control methods that violate its religious beliefs. It’s not that the corporation can’t be forced
to offer birth control methods that violate the beliefs of the owners, but
rather the corporation can’t be forced to offer birth control methods that
violate the CORPORATION’S religious beliefs.
The Supreme Court gave the status of personhood to
Corporations and endowed the newly “personhooded Corporations” with the power
of having religious beliefs that cannot be violated.
This is a very big mistake, it seems to me. When the five conservative justices made a
ruling in accord with their own Christian religious beliefs, they did so in a
manner that could have pretty bad future consequences. I know they tried to limit this ruling to “only”
contraception, but it’s the camel’s nose under the tent, it seems to me.
Christians are not the only religion in the United
States. There are Jews,
Mormons, Native American religions, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Christian Scientists, etc.
etc.
Will Christian Scientist corporations eventually be able to
deny any medical insurance because they don’t believe in medicine? Will Jewish corporations eventually be able
to insist on circumcision or keeping holy the Sabbath? Will Muslim corporations be able to enforce
Sharia law within their corporations – stoning adulterous women? Cutting off
hands of thieves? Genital mutilation of
women? Extreme examples, but it makes a
point of the nonsense of granting personhood to corporations and honoring that “corporation’s
religious belief.”
The whole idea of empowering corporations with personhood
that includes having religious beliefs and giving that corporation the right to
act on those religious beliefs seems to me to be a terrible step into a very unknown
direction. The law of unintended consequences
can become pretty destructive.
It is time for a big change in the Supreme Court. These foolish men are hurting this country.