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Part 1: Alito In Wonderland Part 2: The Constitution Gets Wagged By The Law Part 3: Dictionary Dunces Part 4: An Exception Becomes Constitutional Doctrine Part 5: A Priest On The Bench Part 6: Your Lip Service Is Their Controlling Authority Part 7: Now They Represent You, Now They Don't Part 8: Job Pay Discrimination Based On Religion Part 9: But I Thought At Least Birth Control Was Safely Legal Now They Represent You, Now They Don't: The Hobby Lobby Errors, Part 7 |
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Today we are back for more of page 18 of the Hobby Lobby
ruling where we started. What Alito does next here is justify
personhood for corporations by emphasizing that
"An established body of law specifies the rights and obligations of the PEOPLE [emphasis in original] (including shareholders, officers and employees) who are associated with a corporation in one way or another." Alito then gives an example of how, "extending Fourth Amendment protection to corporations protects the privacy interests of employees and others associated with the company." Notice what Alito has done here. TWICE he has invoked the interests of their employees as a wedge to grant corporations full personhood rights. But then . . . a mere 2 sentences later . . . he has forgotten all about the employees and their rights, and now all he is concerned about is protecting "the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies [Hobby Lobby, etc.]." Now all of a sudden it's the employees be damned. Now all that matters is the moral self-righteousness of a handful of corporate owners, and they can ride roughshod over the religious freedom of those same employees Alito used to grease corporate personhood in the first place. Now, a rhetorical legal heartbeat later, the Supreme Court no longer represents the interests of the employees. Now they serve the corporate masters only. This is the mother of all switcheroos. Folks, it does not get any more intellectually dishonest than this. But we are still not even close to being done with this. Next time in part 8, "Job Pay Discrimination Based On Religion."
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