Sam,
I know you have previously ruled that corporations are people, but I’ve always understood that to be a legal fiction, meaning they can act in the world of commerce—make contracts, be held responsible for debts—as if they were people. I thought this had nothing to do with me. But now I read your ruling in Hobby Lobby, which says “for-profit corporations can exercise religion.” This brings the world’s millions of corporations squarely into my sphere of influence, and now I have to figure out what to do with them. Do you realize that there are more corporations today than there were souls on the planet a few centuries ago? Yes, I’ve grown my staff in the meantime, but I can’t tell you how much trouble this is going to cause. I would ask you to reverse but I know you never change your beliefs (despite what you might have been forced to say in a Senate confirmation hearing).
As a result of actions you yourself undertook, I’ve been going through your opinion in detail, and I have some questions and comments.
You wrote:
No conceivable definition of “person” includes natural persons and nonprofit corporations, but not for-profit corporations.
I get it. I now have to consider corporations equal to human beings in their exercise of religion, and thus their moral culpability. Now, human beings are held accountable through the persistence of their souls after death. Does the corporation have a soul? I have appointed a task force to study the matter and make recommendations. They could use your guidance on a host of related questions. For instance, when is the corporation conceived? Is it when a job creator first has an idea? Is it when he calls his lawyer? Is it when he signs the papers or when he has the intent to sign the papers? Is it wrong to then prevent a job creator from giving birth by, say, refusing funding (the IUD of corporate reproduction)? At the other end of the spectrum, are bankruptcy courts death panels? I would greatly appreciate your views on these issues.
You wrote:
The purpose of extending rights to corporations is to protect the rights of people associated with the corporation, including shareholders, officers, and employees.
I always understood that the purpose of a corporation was to create some space between the owners and agents of the corporation and the liabilities incurred by that corporation—in religious terms, the consequences of their sins. In other words, the shareholder doesn’t pay the full cost if his company implodes under massive debt. But your logic leads me to conclude that you believe the owners of a corporation should keep all rights and privileges in relationship to the company, while not bearing all responsibilities. That may work in the law, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to make the same exception in my judgments, much as I’d like to. I’m very sorry, because I know this exception whereby one gets all the benefits without any downside is convenient for you and all your friends and associates who own large, precarious companies.
You wrote:
Any suggestion that for-profit corporations are incapable of exercising religion because their purpose is simply to make money flies in the face of modern corporate law. States, including those in which the plaintiff corporations were incorporated, authorize corporations to pursue any lawful purpose or business, including the pursuit of profit in conformity with the owners’ religious principles.
I know that you know (and you know that I know) that “pursuit of profit in conformity with religious beliefs” is an oxymoron in a Christian framework. It was the original Christian, Jesus, who said, “You cannot serve both God and money.” But let me salute the beauty of your rhetoric, which makes this jagged chicken bone of a contradiction go down like a strawberry-banana-mango smoothie with a shot of gingko. This kind of thing helps me so much. It only takes the slightest hint to get people to form religious beliefs that will conveniently enable them to pursue the worldly lucre they actually long for. (Somehow they simply overlook or explain away anything contradictory, and think they’ve pulled the camel through the eye of the needle.) Then they rail (and bring lawsuits) about how they should be able to do everything in conformity with their (pre-conformed) religious beliefs. Wonderful trick, no?
You wrote:
[The contraception mandate] requires the Hahns and Greens [the owners of the companies] to engage in conduct that seriously violates their sincere religious belief that life begins at conception.
I’m a bit confused here, I admit. I thought the corporation, which is now a person, was exercising its religious rights. Now you tell me it’s the Hahns and Greens, presumably people as well, acting through or as the corporation, who are exercising their religion. Are they one with their corporations from a religious point of view? Perhaps owner and corporation are two persons in one essence? Are you using the Trinity as your model here? Please clarify.
You wrote:
It is not for the Court to say that the religious beliefs of the plaintiffs are mistaken or unreasonable…. The Court’s “narrow function . . . is to determine” whether the plaintiffs’ asserted religious belief reflects “an honest conviction.”
Oh, Sam, I envy you the simplicity of your world. To simply find a reflection of honest conviction and stop there, and not have to delve into the twisted labyrinths of a man’s heart, to not have to view what he does when he thinks he’s alone, to not view his florid fantasies and explosions of hate, to not see that he relishes crushing others under the heel of his beliefs, to not know that he will trade one conviction for the next as soon as the new one stokes his fancy. Now I must do the same for every corporation. Every oil company, for instance, says it is working day and night to save the planet. You would see the pretty pictures of forests on their website and stop there, having found your reflection of conviction. You would feel happy to be surrounded by such righteous and helpful corporations, even as these same companies spread blackness and waste somewhere beyond your usual haunts. But me, I’m afraid I will have much work to do to untangle this tangled yarn.
I hope my note does not seem accusatory. It’s true I feel you have opened up an immense new territory that I will have to survey and hoe and plant and reap, but I remain appreciative of everything you do. I hope we will be able to discuss these issues soon, perhaps at the next meeting of the Federalist Society.
With kind regards,
S.
Other articles focusing on legal matters:
–Coalition: Privatize Courts, Slash Deficits, and Make American Justice Pay
–Protests Erupt over the Lone Banker Convicted for a Role in the Financial Crisis
