Title: How Corporations Got The Same Rights As People (But Don’t Ever Go To Jail) – Consumerist
Headings: How Corporations Got The Same Rights As People (But Don’t Ever Go To Jail)
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corporate personhood
How Corporations Got The Same Rights As People (But Don’t Ever Go To Jail)
The Evolution Of Constitutional Rights
Conscience, Speech, and Souls
Corporations Can Be Criminals, But Only Bodies Can Go To Jail
Freedom from Jail, Freedom From Law
The Future…

Content: In a 5-4 ruling, the court held that if individuals have free speech, then so must collected groups of individuals. Corporations are groups of individuals and, therefore, they have free speech rights. Further, the Court found, the ability to spend money is central to the ability to disseminate speech. Therefore, limiting spending is also unconstitutional, because limiting money is equal to limiting speech. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, 2014
In a particularly contentious and hot-button case from earlier this year, the Supreme Court moved to protect the religious beliefs not just of individuals, but of the corporations they work for. The Affordable Care Act requires health insurance plans provided by employers to include coverage for an array of health services, including certain contraceptives. The family that owns Hobby Lobby claimed that providing contraception to female employees runs contrary to their Christian religious beliefs. Explicitly religious non-profit organizations, like churches, were exempted from the law but no such provision existed for for-profit, secular corporations and so the family, representing the company, sued the government. In another 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled with Hobby Lobby, finding that closely-held companies — ones that aren’t publicly traded on the stock market — can file for exemptions to federal law on religious grounds, in the same way that churches can. In the Hobby Lobby case, the Court set the precedent that for-profit corporations can have a religion that the government must not interfere in the practice of, just as individuals do.