Do people lose their religious liberties when they work together with others to form a company?

Dana Milbank is confused.  He has a piece in the Washington Post where he says that it is a fiction to say that "corporations are people."  But what is a corporation but a collection of people.  Democrats seem to think that once someone enters into a business arrangement with others they lose their First Amendment rights.

According to Milbank:

the high court not only affirmed corporate personhood but expanded the human rights of corporations, who by some measures enjoy more protections than mortals — or “natural persons,” as the court calls the type of people who do not incorporate in Delaware. . . .

It isn't obvious how the Hobby Lobby decision provides any greater rights to people who are working through their company.  Dana Milbank makes a reference to political donations rules, but all the court did in that decision was say that companies should be treated as individuals.  Individuals care about politics for various reasons, including the impact that politics has on their professional career.  Why should people be able to organize with the people in their own company to protect their personal interests?

Milbank gets somethings confused.

Alito’s ruling notably did not protect the rights of people employed by Hobby Lobby. . . .

But employees have to more right to demand that companies provide them with a certain salary than companies have the right to demand that people work for them for a certain salary.

Take Ginsburg's comment:

Ginsburg, in her dissent, wrote: “Until this litigation, no decision of this Court recognized a for-profit corporation’s qualification for a religious exemption. . . . The exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons, not artificial legal entities. As Chief Justice Marshall observed nearly two centuries ago, a corporation is ‘an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law.’ ” . . .

The point here confuses different issues.  Could you imagine a world where everyone who owned shares in a company had to sign a every contract that the company entered into?  It would be impossible to have shareholders like we do today if that were the case.  So shareholders have a company that represents their interests.  But why then does Ginsburg think that shareholders somehow lose their rights to speech or religious liberty as soon as they set up a company?  Other than a play on the word "fiction" it is hard to see what their argument actually is.

US Supreme Court will decide if the Obamacare contraception mandate “the least restrictive means" of obtaining goal of making contraception available?

I think that the Obama administration will have a hard time winning the new case going to the Supreme court on contraception mandates.  Supporters of the law will focus on whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act applies to for profit businesses.  But I would point out that the court has moved towards letting for profit businesses have free speech rights under the First Amendment (see the Citizens United case from 2010).  The Religious Freedom Restoration Act doesn't specifically exempt for profit businesses from coverage.  It talks about "persons," but why should people lose the ability to honor their religious beliefs when they operate a company?  From The Hill newspaper:

“I think there’s a strong argument that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, in this particular case, would allow Hobby Lobby to deny certain contraception coverage without having to pay the fine that would otherwise be imposed them under the Affordable Care Act,” said Kurt Lash, a constitutional law professor at the University of Illinois.  

The 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act prevents the government from “substantially burden[ing] a person's exercise of religion” unless it “furthers a compelling governmental interest” and “is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” Hobby Lobby, a Christian-owned chain of arts and craft stores, and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp., a cabinet company owned by Mennonites, argue that the law should prevent them from having to offer their employees contraception as part of their health insurance coverage. The two companies are citing the 1993 law to back their cases.   

Kennedy wrote the 1993 decision that allowed a Florida Santeria group that performed animal sacrifices to do so despite a local ban on the practice.  

Under Roberts, the court unanimously ruled in 2006 that a Brazil-based religious sect could use an illegal hallucinogenic drug in their ceremonies, under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  

“We already know that there is a majority on the court that not only is willing to uphold and apply [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] but who in the past has been very skeptical of the government denying claims when they’ve been giving other groups exemptions,” Lash said. It is dangerous to predict the justices' decisions, however, and both of these cases dealt with religious institutions, not for-profit businesses. . . .

Question: if a two cent tax on newspapers and requiring an ultrasound before abortions are deemed unconstitutional infringements on rights, what about everything required for guns?

In 1936, the Supreme Court struck down a two percent tax on newspapers as "unconstitutional under the due process of law clause because it abridges the freedom of the press" (Grosjean v. American Press Co., Inc.).
For abortions, requiring an ultrasound before an abortion is deemed to impose to great of a burden on those seeking an abortion.  The Supreme Court just turned down an appeal from the state of Oklahoma on this issue.

The rejected Ultrasound Act stipulated that at least one hour before an abortion physicians must 1). perform an ultrasound 2). explain what it depicts 3). show the pregnant woman 4). provide a medical description “which shall include the dimensions of the embryo or fetus, the presence of cardiac activity...the presence of external members and internal organs….”

Interestingly, ultrasounds are generally promoted as being simple for women.  During the "first trimester fetal ultrasound typically takes between 15 and 20 minutes" and during the "second trimester ultrasound, completed between 18 and 22 weeks, is usually the longest procedure, lasting 30 to 45 minutes."  The typical cost of an ultrasound is "around $200."

So, are a woman's reproductive rights greater than a woman's right to her own life?

Yet, in Washington, DC it takes 5 hours of training to get a license and register a gun.  One must also take a 20-question exam on DC's firearms laws and regulations.  You must also give your fingerprints and submit a pre-owned firearm for ballistics testing at the office.  Additional cost include having to take the forms in in person.  The total dollar cost is over $500.

Alito in Chicago v. McDonald: "In sum, it is clear that the Framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty."  Scalia in Heller also referred to these rights as "fundamental."

Bottom line: How can a 20 minute test that costs $200 be deemed of as imposing an undue burden on a right, but a 5 hour training requirement and many hours of filing out forms and delivering them plus over $500 in fees not be considered such a burden?  How can a 2 percent tax on newspaper be deemed abridging the First amendment but what could easily be over a 100 percent tax on a gun be viewed as OK?

The court in Grosjean v. American Press Co., Inc. struck down the newspaper tax because it was reducing circulation of what it deemed to be a "fundamental right" ("it is seen to be a deliberate and calculated device in the guise of a tax to limit the circulation of information to which the public is entitled in virtue of the constitutional guaranties").  The tax on gun and ammunition purchases would seem to have the exact same effect on guns.

Is forcing people to work for others when they don't want to a form of slavery?

This last week the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that Christian photographers can't decline certain customers based on their religious beliefs.  Personally, I don't know how this gets around the "free exercise" clause in the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The New Mexican Supreme Court claims that forcing someone to violate their religious beliefs is just "the price of citizenship."

Why is government prevented from newspapers forcing to carry opposing views but perfectly OK for the government to force people to provide their time for causes that they think are wrong?  Jonathan Turley has a differing view available here. 

Add this to the growing list of controls that government has over people's lives.  For example, Obama is threatening jail to someone who wants to shutdown his business rather than turnover information on his clients to the government.

The Associated Press claims that Obama administration spying has already stopped sources from talking to press

I recently posted about the damage that the IRS tactics had already done to people's lives.  Now we can see the damage that Obama administration's spying on the Associated Press has had.

The president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press on Sunday called the government’s secret seizure of two months of reporters’ phone records “unconstitutional” and said the news cooperative had not ruled out legal action against the Justice Department.
Gary Pruitt, in his first television interviews since it was revealed the Justice Department subpoenaed phone records of AP reporters and editors, said the move already has had a chilling effect on journalism. Pruitt said the seizure has made sources less willing to talk to AP journalists and, in the long term, could limit Americans’ information from all news outlets.
Pruitt told CBS’ ”Face the Nation” that the government has no business monitoring the AP’s newsgathering activities.
“And if they restrict that apparatus ... the people of the United States will only know what the government wants them to know and that’s not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment,” he said. . . .

Stopping national security leaks is one thing.  But the process used here by the Obama administration is only supposed to be used when there is imminent danger.  In this case, Obama administration went after  the AP after the leak had already occurred.

A First Amendment challenge to gun control laws?

After the Sikh Temple attack at a gun free zone last year, it is understandable that Sikh's might feel that their traditional daggers are not enough to meet their religious obligation for self protection.  From the Washington Times:

A Sikh man is suing the state of California over its gun laws, arguing they violate his First Amendment rights to practice his religion by barring him from carrying the kind of weapons he says he needs for self-defense. 

Gursant Singh Khalsa, a practicing Sikh for 35 years, charges in the lawsuit filed this month that California’s laws banning military-style, semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines violate mainstream Sikh doctinre requiring Sikhs “be at all time fully prepared to defend themselves and others against injustice.” 

“We’re required to wear what’s called a kirpan” or dagger, he said Thursday. “I feel, as far as my religion goes, it dictates that we should have all weapons of all kinds to defend ourselves. By not being able to carry an assault rifle or weapon that has a high-capacity magazine, I don’t feel that I can defend myself or my family.” . . .

No Free Speech Rights for Those Wanting to End Gun Free Zones?

This is bizarre, but it is hardly surprising.

WASHINGTON — The First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to free speech. The Second Amendment guarantees the right to possess firearms. Now the first two clauses in the Bill of Rights have come together in an ongoing debate over the right of college students to advocate that they be allowed to carry guns on campus.

The bloody massacres at Virginia Tech and Columbine High School, as well as smaller campus shootings across the country in the last decade, have fomented a lively debate over whether citizens should be allowed to carry concealed weapons to defend themselves on campus.

But that debate has hit a wall of resistance from school officials in some places, bringing into focus the dual issues of gun rights and free speech.

Many gun-rights advocates are arguing that college campuses, which are supposed to be open to diversity of thought, provocative dialogue, politics and protest, are hardly bastions of free speech when it comes to discussing firearms.

"The fact is, the topic is so explosive," said Robert Shibley, spokesman for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which tracks discriminatory practices against students involved in conservative issues on campus. They've been dealing with "more and more" complaints about efforts to "squelch gun speech," he said.

The latest flareup involves Christine Brashier, who says officials at the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) violated her First Amendment right to free speech when they stopped her from posting and distributing fliers advocating for concealed carry on campus, and for a new chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) at the college. The group has about a dozen chapters on other Pennsylvania campuses, Shibley said.

"I genuinely wanted to start discussion on the topic," Brasier told FOXNews.com this week. " I am not such an avid gun owner as much of the news has made me out to be — I simply believe in liberty and that college is the place for a debate about important issues such as this one." . . . . .

Read the rest.

Thanks to Anthony Troglio for the link.