Re: On a different strand of the seamless web
I guess the difference is this; the owners of Hobby Lobby are free to do as they choose; but Hobby Lobby is not a person; it takes advantage of all the protections of corporations. Suppose the owners of Hobby Lobby deeply opposed racial integration. In their private lives they could act on that; they could live in a segregated private world but would not allow them to claim that in their business they could refuse to hire blacks (or Jews, or non-Christians etc.) and similarly, they would have to serve all customers. That is the difference between a company and an individual. I agree with Doug that the owners of Hobby Lobby should live their lives; I do not see how a corporation -- even a closely held one -- with thousands and tens of thousands of employees -- constitutes people living their lives. Going to the mall is not really a religious experience. From: Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu To: Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com; religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Sent: Monday, July 7, 2014 1:37 AM Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web I think individual humans, who believe that they have souls, do not forfeit their right to religious liberty when they incorporate their business. I believe that exemptions are about letting them live their lives, and restricting or prohibiting government-sponsored prayer is about letting everyone else live theirs. On Sun, 6 Jul 2014 13:47:49 -0700 Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com wrote: unlike Doug, I do not believe corporations are people, that they have religious believes or that they have souls (that is of course an understatement); corporations are legal vehicles designed to make money for the investors and to shield the investors from having to use their own assets to cover losses and debts. I do not believe any faith thinks Hobby Lobby has an immortal soul, can go to heaven or hell, or that it prays. So, I guess I am unpersuaded that there can be an exemption issue for a corporation From: Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu To: Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com; Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2014 11:36 AM Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web Unlike Paul, I think the exemption issues and the government-sponsored prayer issues are very different. On Sun, 6 Jul 2014 01:36:45 -0700 Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com wrote: Doug's point here seems to encapsulate what is the problem for so many of us. Those in the majority would make the rest of us burn incense, or listen to their prayers, or pay for their prayers or pray with them, or obey their views on sex and marriage and children, and we can go on and on. And many in the majority forget that they were once persecuted, whether it was Christians killed in Rome or Baptists whipped in Virginia, and now that they have the power, they would impose it on us, whether it is health care if you are unfortunate enough to have to work for Hobby Lobby or prayers if you are unfortunate enough to need something form the government of the Town of Greece. Paul Finkelman (writing from Granada, where the evidence and reminders of religious intolerance and persecution is everywhere) From: Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2014 1:01 AM Subject: On a different strand of the seamless web On Sat, 5 Jul 2014 11:02:00 -0700 Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu wrote: * * * * Christians died rather than burn a pinch of incense to the emperor. Yes they did. A point they entirely forget as they impose brief Christian prayer services on their fellow citizens at public meetings, and insist that it's no big deal to go through of motions of praying to a God you don't believe in. Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law
Re: On a different strand of the seamless web
off list I can only add Amen. From: Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Sent: Monday, July 7, 2014 1:33 AM Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web Even in the rare case of government-sponsored prayer where no one is coerced to participate, the government is gratuitously telling citizens that its religion is true and their religion is false. Telling people what religious beliefs are true was one important element of the classic establishments. But apart from all that, in the real world citizens who attend the meeting are forced to participate in the prayer. The government pressures religious dissenters directly in these situatins, and it creates the occasion for intense pressure on religious dissenters from their fellow citrizens. To deny or ignore all this, as the Court did in Greece, is simply out of touch with human reality. On Sun, 6 Jul 2014 21:57:27 -0700 Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edu wrote: Sandy: I appreciate your point, and it is certainly a view held by many serious scholars. But my point is simply that it isn't at all obvious that this indeed involves an Establishment Clause violation - and that, especially it isn't obvious that this involves religious liberty (Alan's phrase, to which I was specifically responding), and indeed many serious scholars think the two are quite different. Among other things, being ordered to do (or not do) something strikes me as more clearly a matter of liberty than hearing things from the government. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Levinson, Sanford V Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 1:31 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web I think that once one is hearing from government offensive theological views, the Establishment Clause is fully implicated. It is prudence, and nothing else, that legitimizes In God We Trust. (That's why the court had to invent an implausible standing doctrine to avoid deciding in Newdow's favor.) But I think there's a role for prudence, as against all principle all the time. Sandy Sent from my iPhone On Jul 6, 2014, at 2:26 PM, Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edumailto:vol...@law.ucla.edu wrote: I take it that the authors of those briefs saw a law requiring someone to do something that they thought was sinful as different from a practice under which people end up hearing things from the government that they might find offensive or alienating. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Alan Brownstein Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 11:10 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web I think Chips and Doug's key points in their posts are worth emphasizing. Many briefs supporting the town of Greece and the Court's opinion in that case treated the religious liberty arguments of plaintiffs with complete distain. The authors of many of those briefs and the same justices who wrote the opinion upholding coercive and discriminatory prayer practices in Town of Greece insisted that the religious liberty of Hobby Lobby must be protected. As Chip suggests, a tradition, or support for a legal regime, of religious liberty for me but not for you cannot be fairly described as a commitment to religious liberty. An incidental, but not insignificant, result of this kind one-sided support for religious liberty is the burden it places on those of us who try to defend and promote religious liberty and equality for people on both sides of the culture wars. Alan ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives
Re: On a different strand of the seamless web
i guess it was on list, but the analysis is the same From: Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Sent: Monday, July 7, 2014 3:48 AM Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web off list I can only add Amen. From: Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Sent: Monday, July 7, 2014 1:33 AM Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web Even in the rare case of government-sponsored prayer where no one is coerced to participate, the government is gratuitously telling citizens that its religion is true and their religion is false. Telling people what religious beliefs are true was one important element of the classic establishments. But apart from all that, in the real world citizens who attend the meeting are forced to participate in the prayer. The government pressures religious dissenters directly in these situatins, and it creates the occasion for intense pressure on religious dissenters from their fellow citrizens. To deny or ignore all this, as the Court did in Greece, is simply out of touch with human reality. On Sun, 6 Jul 2014 21:57:27 -0700 Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edu wrote: Sandy: I appreciate your point, and it is certainly a view held by many serious scholars. But my point is simply that it isn't at all obvious that this indeed involves an Establishment Clause violation - and that, especially it isn't obvious that this involves religious liberty (Alan's phrase, to which I was specifically responding), and indeed many serious scholars think the two are quite different. Among other things, being ordered to do (or not do) something strikes me as more clearly a matter of liberty than hearing things from the government. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Levinson, Sanford V Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 1:31 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web I think that once one is hearing from government offensive theological views, the Establishment Clause is fully implicated. It is prudence, and nothing else, that legitimizes In God We Trust. (That's why the court had to invent an implausible standing doctrine to avoid deciding in Newdow's favor.) But I think there's a role for prudence, as against all principle all the time. Sandy Sent from my iPhone On Jul 6, 2014, at 2:26 PM, Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edumailto:vol...@law.ucla.edu wrote: I take it that the authors of those briefs saw a law requiring someone to do something that they thought was sinful as different from a practice under which people end up hearing things from the government that they might find offensive or alienating. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Alan Brownstein Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 11:10 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web I think Chips and Doug's key points in their posts are worth emphasizing. Many briefs supporting the town of Greece and the Court's opinion in that case treated the religious liberty arguments of plaintiffs with complete distain. The authors of many of those briefs and the same justices who wrote the opinion upholding coercive and discriminatory prayer practices in Town of Greece insisted that the religious liberty of Hobby Lobby must be protected. As Chip suggests, a tradition, or support for a legal regime, of religious liberty for me but not for you cannot be fairly described as a commitment to religious liberty. An incidental, but not insignificant, result of this kind one-sided support for religious liberty is the burden it places on those of us who try to defend and promote religious liberty and equality for people on both sides of the culture wars. Alan ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
Re: On a different strand of the seamless web
i am not sure; my point is this that Hobby Lobby is NOT about individuals it is about a company. I agree with Doug (and probably every on this list) that the owners of Hobby should have religious liberty to avoid doing some things (but I believe that is true for Smith in the Oregon case). My point is that Hobby Lobby is a corporation and not a person and so it has no -- zero -- rights of religious liberty. It should be required to act according to the law, the same as any other corporation. For profit corporations (as opposed to an not-for-profit religious corporation) are not people so I simply disagree that their owners are free to act in the way Doug wishes. So, in that sense, I think Doug's position has to be that the corporation somehow has a religious liberty. I am not buying it. From: Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edu To: Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com; Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2014 7:11 PM Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web Paul: Are you seriously claiming that Doug believes a corporation has a soul? Or even that he believes it is a person (the singular of “people”) in the lay sense of the word “person,” as opposed to the Dictionary Act sense of the person? Eugene From:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Finkelman Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 1:48 PM To: Douglas Laycock; Law Religion issues for Law Academics; Scarberry, Mark Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web unlike Doug, I do not believe corporations are people, that they have religious believes or that they have souls (that is of course an understatement); corporations are legal vehicles designed to make money for the investors and to shield the investors from having to use their own assets to cover losses and debts. I do not believe any faith thinks Hobby Lobby has an immortal soul, can go to heaven or hell, or that it prays. So, I guess I am unpersuaded that there can be an exemption issue for a corporation From:Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu To: Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com; Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2014 11:36 AM Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web Unlike Paul, I think the exemption issues and the government-sponsored prayer issues are very different.___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: On a different strand of the seamless web
Dear colleagues, I suppose I am just echoing a point that Eugene made, but it seems to me that -- while it is certainly possible to imagine settling, at the end of the day, if only for pragmatic reasons, on a legal regime that did not extend religion-related exemptions from generally applicable commercial or economic regulations or did not extend them to for-profit corporations -- the reason or justification for this regime would not be (a) that religious commitments have nothing to say about, and do not often motivate, commercial or economic activity; (b) that business corporations do not have souls; or (c) that only laws regulating the activities of natural persons can burden religious freedom or the exercise of religion. Best wishes, Rick Richard W. Garnett Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor of Political Science Director, Program on Church, State Society Notre Dame Law School P.O. Box 780 Notre Dame, Indiana 46556-0780 574-631-6981 (w) 574-276-2252 (cell) rgarn...@nd.edu To download my scholarly papers, please visit my SSRN page http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=342235 Blogs: Prawfsblawg http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/ Mirror of Justice http://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/ Twitter: @RickGarnett https://twitter.com/RickGarnett On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 4:53 AM, Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com wrote: i am not sure; my point is this that Hobby Lobby is NOT about individuals it is about a company. I agree with Doug (and probably every on this list) that the owners of Hobby should have religious liberty to avoid doing some things (but I believe that is true for Smith in the Oregon case). My point is that Hobby Lobby is a corporation and not a person and so it has no -- zero -- rights of religious liberty. It should be required to act according to the law, the same as any other corporation. For profit corporations (as opposed to an not-for-profit religious corporation) are not people so I simply disagree that their owners are free to act in the way Doug wishes. So, in that sense, I think Doug's position has to be that the corporation somehow has a religious liberty. I am not buying it. -- *From:* Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edu *To:* Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com; Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu *Sent:* Sunday, July 6, 2014 7:11 PM *Subject:* RE: On a different strand of the seamless web Paul: Are you seriously claiming that Doug believes a corporation has a soul? Or even that he believes it is a person (the singular of “people”) in the lay sense of the word “person,” as opposed to the Dictionary Act sense of the person? Eugene *From:* religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] *On Behalf Of *Paul Finkelman *Sent:* Sunday, July 06, 2014 1:48 PM *To:* Douglas Laycock; Law Religion issues for Law Academics; Scarberry, Mark *Subject:* Re: On a different strand of the seamless web unlike Doug, I do not believe corporations are people, that they have religious believes or that they have souls (that is of course an understatement); corporations are legal vehicles designed to make money for the investors and to shield the investors from having to use their own assets to cover losses and debts. I do not believe any faith thinks Hobby Lobby has an immortal soul, can go to heaven or hell, or that it prays. So, I guess I am unpersuaded that there can be an exemption issue for a corporation -- *From:* Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu *To:* Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com; Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu *Sent:* Sunday, July 6, 2014 11:36 AM *Subject:* Re: On a different strand of the seamless web Unlike Paul, I think the exemption issues and the government-sponsored prayer issues are very different. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages
Re: On a different strand of the seamless web
On this point, I think we may have at least some degree of consensus: The issue is not corporate v. noncorporate, or for-profit v. nonprofit; it is, instead -- and has been ever since Prince, a case involving individuals acting in the commercial sector for religious, nonprofit reasons -- whether and under what circumstances exemptions should be afforded in the commercial setting. Also, as I have been blogging since the outset of the case, the issue is not the religious exercise of the commercial enterprise -- it's absurd to say that any religion imposes obligations on Hobby Lobby, Inc. -- but instead the religious exercise of those who make decisions on its behalf. I think the Alito opinion is best understood to confirm this conclusion. To be sure, at a couple of points he refers to permitting the RFRA suit to be brought by Hobby Lobby itself. But there's no doubt that it's the Greens and the Hahns, in their capacity as corporate directors, whose religious exercise is at issue: -- Congress did not discriminate in this way *against men and women who wish to run their businesses* as for-profit corporations *in the manner required by their religious beliefs.-- *Congress provided protection for *people like the Hahns and Greens* -- the *Hahns and Greens* have a sincere religious belief that life begins at conception. They therefore object on religious grounds to providing health insurance that covers methods of birth control . . . . Ultimately, the Court holds that protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga, and Mardel protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies. I think this formulation doesn't make sense conceptually -- the corporations don't exercise religion. Therefore it would have made much more sense for the Court simply to say that the Greens and Hahns can sue under RFRA. But in any event, there's no doubt that, at least in the for-profit cases, the burden is allegedly placed on the religious exercise of the individuals making decisions on behalf of the companies, rather than on any religious exercise of the companies themselves. -- On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 10:40 AM, Rick Garnett rgarn...@nd.edu wrote: Dear colleagues, I suppose I am just echoing a point that Eugene made, but it seems to me that -- while it is certainly possible to imagine settling, at the end of the day, if only for pragmatic reasons, on a legal regime that did not extend religion-related exemptions from generally applicable commercial or economic regulations or did not extend them to for-profit corporations -- the reason or justification for this regime would not be (a) that religious commitments have nothing to say about, and do not often motivate, commercial or economic activity; (b) that business corporations do not have souls; or (c) that only laws regulating the activities of natural persons can burden religious freedom or the exercise of religion. Best wishes, Rick Richard W. Garnett Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor of Political Science Director, Program on Church, State Society Notre Dame Law School P.O. Box 780 Notre Dame, Indiana 46556-0780 574-631-6981 (w) 574-276-2252 (cell) rgarn...@nd.edu To download my scholarly papers, please visit my SSRN page http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=342235 Blogs: Prawfsblawg http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/ Mirror of Justice http://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/ Twitter: @RickGarnett https://twitter.com/RickGarnett On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 4:53 AM, Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com wrote: i am not sure; my point is this that Hobby Lobby is NOT about individuals it is about a company. I agree with Doug (and probably every on this list) that the owners of Hobby should have religious liberty to avoid doing some things (but I believe that is true for Smith in the Oregon case). My point is that Hobby Lobby is a corporation and not a person and so it has no -- zero -- rights of religious liberty. It should be required to act according to the law, the same as any other corporation. For profit corporations (as opposed to an not-for-profit religious corporation) are not people so I simply disagree that their owners are free to act in the way Doug wishes. So, in that sense, I think Doug's position has to be that the corporation somehow has a religious liberty. I am not buying it. -- *From:* Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edu *To:* Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com; Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu *Sent:* Sunday, July 6, 2014 7:11 PM *Subject:* RE: On a different strand of the seamless web Paul: Are you seriously claiming that Doug believes a corporation has a soul? Or even that he believes it is a person (the singular
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
Paul: You said, “unlike Doug, I do not believe corporations are people, that they have religious believes or that they have souls (that is of course an understatement).” That strikes me as a statement that Doug does believe that corporations are people (in the lay sense of the word “person”), and that they have souls. Whatever the underlying point may have been, the actual statement appears to me like a claim that an adversary of yours believes something ridiculous, something that I’m pretty sure he doesn’t actually believe. Can you point me, please, to any evidence that this statement of yours about Doug is actually true? Eugene From: Paul Finkelman [mailto:paul.finkel...@yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 1:53 AM To: Volokh, Eugene; Law Religion issues for Law Academics; Douglas Laycock; Scarberry, Mark Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web i am not sure; my point is this that Hobby Lobby is NOT about individuals it is about a company. I agree with Doug (and probably every on this list) that the owners of Hobby should have religious liberty to avoid doing some things (but I believe that is true for Smith in the Oregon case). My point is that Hobby Lobby is a corporation and not a person and so it has no -- zero -- rights of religious liberty. It should be required to act according to the law, the same as any other corporation. For profit corporations (as opposed to an not-for-profit religious corporation) are not people so I simply disagree that their owners are free to act in the way Doug wishes. So, in that sense, I think Doug's position has to be that the corporation somehow has a religious liberty. I am not buying it. From: Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edumailto:vol...@law.ucla.edu To: Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.commailto:paul.finkel...@yahoo.com; Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edumailto:dlayc...@virginia.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edumailto:mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2014 7:11 PM Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web Paul: Are you seriously claiming that Doug believes a corporation has a soul? Or even that he believes it is a person (the singular of “people”) in the lay sense of the word “person,” as opposed to the Dictionary Act sense of the person? Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Finkelman Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 1:48 PM To: Douglas Laycock; Law Religion issues for Law Academics; Scarberry, Mark Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web unlike Doug, I do not believe corporations are people, that they have religious believes or that they have souls (that is of course an understatement); corporations are legal vehicles designed to make money for the investors and to shield the investors from having to use their own assets to cover losses and debts. I do not believe any faith thinks Hobby Lobby has an immortal soul, can go to heaven or hell, or that it prays. So, I guess I am unpersuaded that there can be an exemption issue for a corporation From: Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edumailto:dlayc...@virginia.edu To: Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.commailto:paul.finkel...@yahoo.com; Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edumailto:mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2014 11:36 AM Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web Unlike Paul, I think the exemption issues and the government-sponsored prayer issues are very different. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
I will admit I may have put words into Doug's mouth, and if so I apologize. However, whether it is Doug or Justice Alito, it strikes me that the point is the same. A for-profit corporation cannot have a soul or a religion. It is not a person in that sense and I doubt any religion would say it is. So if it cannot have a religion, it cannot have an exemption from a law of general applicability on the basis of its faith. * Paul Finkelman, Ph.D. President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law Albany Law School 80 New Scotland Avenue Albany, NY 12208 518-445-3386 (p) 518-445-3363 (f) paul.finkel...@albanylaw.edumailto:paul.finkel...@albanylaw.edu www.paulfinkelman.comhttp://www.paulfinkelman.com/ * From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] on behalf of Volokh, Eugene [vol...@law.ucla.edu] Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 11:25 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web Paul: You said, “unlike Doug, I do not believe corporations are people, that they have religious believes or that they have souls (that is of course an understatement).” That strikes me as a statement that Doug does believe that corporations are people (in the lay sense of the word “person”), and that they have souls. Whatever the underlying point may have been, the actual statement appears to me like a claim that an adversary of yours believes something ridiculous, something that I’m pretty sure he doesn’t actually believe. Can you point me, please, to any evidence that this statement of yours about Doug is actually true? Eugene From: Paul Finkelman [mailto:paul.finkel...@yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 1:53 AM To: Volokh, Eugene; Law Religion issues for Law Academics; Douglas Laycock; Scarberry, Mark Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web i am not sure; my point is this that Hobby Lobby is NOT about individuals it is about a company. I agree with Doug (and probably every on this list) that the owners of Hobby should have religious liberty to avoid doing some things (but I believe that is true for Smith in the Oregon case). My point is that Hobby Lobby is a corporation and not a person and so it has no -- zero -- rights of religious liberty. It should be required to act according to the law, the same as any other corporation. For profit corporations (as opposed to an not-for-profit religious corporation) are not people so I simply disagree that their owners are free to act in the way Doug wishes. So, in that sense, I think Doug's position has to be that the corporation somehow has a religious liberty. I am not buying it. From: Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edumailto:vol...@law.ucla.edu To: Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.commailto:paul.finkel...@yahoo.com; Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edumailto:dlayc...@virginia.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edumailto:mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2014 7:11 PM Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web Paul: Are you seriously claiming that Doug believes a corporation has a soul? Or even that he believes it is a person (the singular of “people”) in the lay sense of the word “person,” as opposed to the Dictionary Act sense of the person? Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Finkelman Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 1:48 PM To: Douglas Laycock; Law Religion issues for Law Academics; Scarberry, Mark Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web unlike Doug, I do not believe corporations are people, that they have religious believes or that they have souls (that is of course an understatement); corporations are legal vehicles designed to make money for the investors and to shield the investors from having to use their own assets to cover losses and debts. I do not believe any faith thinks Hobby Lobby has an immortal soul, can go to heaven or hell, or that it prays. So, I guess I am unpersuaded that there can be an exemption issue for a corporation From: Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edumailto:dlayc...@virginia.edu To: Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.commailto:paul.finkel...@yahoo.com; Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edumailto:mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2014 11:36 AM Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web Unlike Paul, I think
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
I agree with most of what Marty says here. Commercial corporations do not have dignitary rights such as the right to exercise religion. Human persons have these rights and one can argue as Alito often but not always does that they should not be held to have waived those rights because they elect to do business in a corporate form. Alito’s opinion is strongest when he focuses on real people. But the majority also holds that commercial corporations are persons for RFRA purposes. I do not think it was necessary to reach that conclusion to protect the Greens and Hahns in this case. Alito suggests that this idea of corporate personhood is a fiction, but it is more than that. It is a caricature of human dignity to describe a commercial corporation as having religious exercise rights. I think that is part of what is provoking some of the criticisms directed at Alito’s opinion. Moreover, by holding that corporations are persons for RFRA purposes, Alito makes it much easier to argue that publicly traded corporations are persons for RFRA purposes as well as closely held corporations. Finally, the issue of commercial corporate dignitary rights arises in other contexts involving other rights. I think, for example, as did Chief Justice Rehnquist, that it is absurd to suggest that commercial corporations have dignitary rights that are offended if they are compelled as corporate entities to speak – or to be connected in some modest way with some government mandated message. By talking about commercial corporate religious exercise rights in Hobby Lobby, the Court arguably reinforces the idea of corporate dignitary rights in other circumstances. Alan From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Marty Lederman Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 8:14 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web On this point, I think we may have at least some degree of consensus: The issue is not corporate v. noncorporate, or for-profit v. nonprofit; it is, instead -- and has been ever since Prince, a case involving individuals acting in the commercial sector for religious, nonprofit reasons -- whether and under what circumstances exemptions should be afforded in the commercial setting. Also, as I have been blogging since the outset of the case, the issue is not the religious exercise of the commercial enterprise -- it's absurd to say that any religion imposes obligations on Hobby Lobby, Inc. -- but instead the religious exercise of those who make decisions on its behalf. I think the Alito opinion is best understood to confirm this conclusion. To be sure, at a couple of points he refers to permitting the RFRA suit to be brought by Hobby Lobby itself. But there's no doubt that it's the Greens and the Hahns, in their capacity as corporate directors, whose religious exercise is at issue: -- Congress did not discriminate in this way against men and women who wish to run their businesses as for-profit corporations in the manner required by their religious beliefs. -- Congress provided protection for people like the Hahns and Greens -- the Hahns and Greens have a sincere religious belief that life begins at conception. They therefore object on religious grounds to providing health insurance that covers methods of birth control . . . . Ultimately, the Court holds that protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga, and Mardel protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies. I think this formulation doesn't make sense conceptually -- the corporations don't exercise religion. Therefore it would have made much more sense for the Court simply to say that the Greens and Hahns can sue under RFRA. But in any event, there's no doubt that, at least in the for-profit cases, the burden is allegedly placed on the religious exercise of the individuals making decisions on behalf of the companies, rather than on any religious exercise of the companies themselves. -- On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 10:40 AM, Rick Garnett rgarn...@nd.edumailto:rgarn...@nd.edu wrote: Dear colleagues, I suppose I am just echoing a point that Eugene made, but it seems to me that -- while it is certainly possible to imagine settling, at the end of the day, if only for pragmatic reasons, on a legal regime that did not extend religion-related exemptions from generally applicable commercial or economic regulations or did not extend them to for-profit corporations -- the reason or justification for this regime would not be (a) that religious commitments have nothing to say about, and do not often motivate, commercial or economic activity; (b) that business corporations do not have souls; or (c) that only laws regulating the activities of natural persons can burden religious freedom or the exercise of religion. Best wishes, Rick Richard W. Garnett
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
It would be helpful (at least to me), Eugene, if you provided a more complete explanation of why you think there is no religious liberty issue in Town of Greece. I see Town of Greece this way. Residents go to town board meetings to participate in public comment to try to influence the Board on matters that are very important to the residents petitioning their government. These matters may often have a particularly significant impact on a relatively small number of residents. The Board will often have considerable political discretion in how it resolves the matters in question. At the beginning of the meeting, residents are asked to participate in a religious exercise by a chaplain designated and invited by the city staff under the Board's direction.. They are asked to stand and bow their heads and join in the religious exercise while a member of the clergy prays to G-d in their name (not simply on their behalf). I think the town's policy is intrinsically coercive. Residents will feel pressured and compelled to participate because they will feel that their failure to do so will alienate the very decision-makers they are trying to convince on matters that are important to them. I also think their concerns are not misplaced. In many cases, Board members will be offended and angry if people leave the meeting during the prayer or refuse to stand with the rest of the audience. Government officials often take inappropriate considerations into account in reaching decisions. Indeed, the Constitution is grounded in this basic distrust of government and the need to prevent officials from abusing their power. I think it is always intrinsically coercive when an individual appears before a government official or board exercising discretionary judgment on a matter in order to influence the way the official will decide the matter and the official asks the individual to stand, bow his head and join the official in prayer before hearing the individual's petition. I think this would be true in a court room if the prayer was offered by a judge (or his designated chaplain); it would be true in situations where individuals go to a government office to seek benefits controlled by bureaucrats; it would be true if parents are meeting with their child's public school teacher and are requesting some change in the way the teachers relates to their child - and numerous other examples. Do you think these circumstances aren't coercive, Eugene? Or do you think they are coercive, but the Constitution does not prohibit this kind of coercion? Or is there some other reason why you think these is no burden on religious liberty in Town of Greece. I understand that there are also serious religious equality concerns with the town of Greece's policy. That's a separate question. But the liberty concerns I describe above having nothing to do with people being offended because they hear things they disagree with from the government. Alan From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 9:57 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web Sandy: I appreciate your point, and it is certainly a view held by many serious scholars. But my point is simply that it isn't at all obvious that this indeed involves an Establishment Clause violation - and that, especially it isn't obvious that this involves religious liberty (Alan's phrase, to which I was specifically responding), and indeed many serious scholars think the two are quite different. Among other things, being ordered to do (or not do) something strikes me as more clearly a matter of liberty than hearing things from the government. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Levinson, Sanford V Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 1:31 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web I think that once one is hearing from government offensive theological views, the Establishment Clause is fully implicated. It is prudence, and nothing else, that legitimizes In God We Trust. (That's why the court had to invent an implausible standing doctrine to avoid deciding in Newdow's favor.) But I think there's a role for prudence, as against all principle all the time. Sandy Sent from my iPhone On Jul 6, 2014, at 2:26 PM, Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edumailto:vol...@law.ucla.edu wrote: I take it that the authors of those briefs saw a law requiring someone to do something that they thought was sinful as different from a practice under which people end up hearing things from the government that they might find offensive or alienating. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
in Town of Greece. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Alan Brownstein Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 10:23 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web It would be helpful (at least to me), Eugene, if you provided a more complete explanation of why you think there is no religious liberty issue in Town of Greece. I see Town of Greece this way. Residents go to town board meetings to participate in public comment to try to influence the Board on matters that are very important to the residents petitioning their government. These matters may often have a particularly significant impact on a relatively small number of residents. The Board will often have considerable political discretion in how it resolves the matters in question. At the beginning of the meeting, residents are asked to participate in a religious exercise by a chaplain designated and invited by the city staff under the Board's direction.. They are asked to stand and bow their heads and join in the religious exercise while a member of the clergy prays to G-d in their name (not simply on their behalf). I think the town's policy is intrinsically coercive. Residents will feel pressured and compelled to participate because they will feel that their failure to do so will alienate the very decision-makers they are trying to convince on matters that are important to them. I also think their concerns are not misplaced. In many cases, Board members will be offended and angry if people leave the meeting during the prayer or refuse to stand with the rest of the audience. Government officials often take inappropriate considerations into account in reaching decisions. Indeed, the Constitution is grounded in this basic distrust of government and the need to prevent officials from abusing their power. I think it is always intrinsically coercive when an individual appears before a government official or board exercising discretionary judgment on a matter in order to influence the way the official will decide the matter and the official asks the individual to stand, bow his head and join the official in prayer before hearing the individual's petition. I think this would be true in a court room if the prayer was offered by a judge (or his designated chaplain); it would be true in situations where individuals go to a government office to seek benefits controlled by bureaucrats; it would be true if parents are meeting with their child's public school teacher and are requesting some change in the way the teachers relates to their child - and numerous other examples. Do you think these circumstances aren't coercive, Eugene? Or do you think they are coercive, but the Constitution does not prohibit this kind of coercion? Or is there some other reason why you think these is no burden on religious liberty in Town of Greece. I understand that there are also serious religious equality concerns with the town of Greece's policy. That's a separate question. But the liberty concerns I describe above having nothing to do with people being offended because they hear things they disagree with from the government. Alan From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 9:57 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web Sandy: I appreciate your point, and it is certainly a view held by many serious scholars. But my point is simply that it isn't at all obvious that this indeed involves an Establishment Clause violation - and that, especially it isn't obvious that this involves religious liberty (Alan's phrase, to which I was specifically responding), and indeed many serious scholars think the two are quite different. Among other things, being ordered to do (or not do) something strikes me as more clearly a matter of liberty than hearing things from the government. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Levinson, Sanford V Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 1:31 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web I think that once one is hearing from government offensive theological views, the Establishment Clause is fully implicated. It is prudence, and nothing else, that legitimizes In God We Trust. (That's why the court had to invent an implausible standing doctrine to avoid deciding in Newdow's favor.) But I think there's a role for prudence, as against all principle all the time. Sandy Sent from my iPhone On Jul 6, 2014, at 2:26 PM, Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edumailto:vol...@law.ucla.edu wrote
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
I don't see how this works. First, the question isn't whether a customer's going to the mall is a religious experience. The question is whether the mall owner's decisions about how to run with the mall may be guided or mandated by religious beliefs. A mall owner might, for instance, feel obligated to close the mall Saturdays or Sundays, or refuse to allow alcohol or lottery tickets to be sold in the mall, or refuse to allow what he sees as blasphemous materials to be sold in the mall. Say that a state mandates that all shops sell lottery tickets (since that's good for the public fisc and good for public education, which the lottery helps fund). Would the fact that going to the mall isn't really a religious experience tell us anything about whether the mall owner should get an exemption from a must sell lottery tickets law, or a must be open seven days a week law, or some such? Second, I think what's doing the work below is racial integration, not corporate status. I take it that if Hobby Lobby was a sole proprietorship that refused to hire blacks or Jews or non-Christians, for most of us our reaction as to the bottom line would be the same: There's a compelling government interest in preventing this sort of job discrimination in employment. If I'm right, then the example does not reflect any difference between a company and an individual. To really test whether there should be a difference between a corporation and an individual (or some other sort of company and an individual), we'd need a hypothetical in which we think an individual ought to prevail. So let's return to the gambling example. Say that a member of the United Methodist denomination believes that it's sinful for his business to sell lottery tickets, and say he owns - as a sole proprietor - a convenience store, and a state law requires all such stores to sell lottery tickets. I would think that he would have a plausible claim under a RFRA or a state constitutional Sherbert/Yoder regime to an exemption from the lottery ticket sales requirement. The law substantially burdens his practice of religion, and it's hard to see how denying the exemption is the least restrictive means of serving a compelling government interest. Should the rule be different if the person owns the store via a corporation, perhaps one co-owned with a couple of family members who share his views? Perhaps one might argue that the answer should be yes. But I think that's far from clear, and I think considering this in the context of this sort of hypothetical, where there isn't a compelling interest, is more helpful than the hypothetical given below. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Finkelman Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 12:11 AM To: Douglas Laycock; religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web I guess the difference is this; the owners of Hobby Lobby are free to do as they choose; but Hobby Lobby is not a person; it takes advantage of all the protections of corporations. Suppose the owners of Hobby Lobby deeply opposed racial integration. In their private lives they could act on that; they could live in a segregated private world but would not allow them to claim that in their business they could refuse to hire blacks (or Jews, or non-Christians etc.) and similarly, they would have to serve all customers. That is the difference between a company and an individual. I agree with Doug that the owners of Hobby Lobby should live their lives; I do not see how a corporation -- even a closely held one -- with thousands and tens of thousands of employees -- constitutes people living their lives. Going to the mall is not really a religious experience. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
Lots of advocacy groups are organized as corporations. It is a very common means of collecting money and engaging is supporting good causes. The fact that it is a corporation should not undermine the idea that a lot of well-meaning people have banded together to do something good. I do not see that it diminishes their sense of doing good things because we use the fiction that the corporation is doing them. Similarly, though I disagree with the decision in Hobby Lobby for many reasons that have been stated on this list, it is not because Alito uses the fiction of the corporation to uphold what the Court decides are the rights of the Greens and the Hahns. To me, to suggest that the decision gives corporations dignitary rights, which admittedly they do not have gets off the point. To me a big obstacle to tolerance arises when we think of rights as dignitary rights so that the failure to recognize becomes tantamount to failing to respect someone's personhood. Tolerance will be scarce if we all start to think that the presence of a religious symbol that is not ours diminishes our dignity, and so I think we should stay well clear of the concept of dignitary rights. Jon On 2014-07-07 12:55, Alan Brownstein wrote: I agree with most of what Marty says here. Commercial corporations do not have dignitary rights such as the right to exercise religion. Human persons have these rights and one can argue as Alito often but not always does that they should not be held to have waived those rights because they elect to do business in a corporate form. Alito’s opinion is strongest when he focuses on real people. But the majority also holds that commercial corporations are persons for RFRA purposes. I do not think it was necessary to reach that conclusion to protect the Greens and Hahns in this case. Alito suggests that this idea of corporate personhood is a fiction, but it is more than that. It is a caricature of human dignity to describe a commercial corporation as having religious exercise rights. I think that is part of what is provoking some of the criticisms directed at Alito’s opinion. Moreover, by holding that corporations are persons for RFRA purposes, Alito makes it much easier to argue that publicly traded corporations are persons for RFRA purposes as well as closely held corporations. Finally, the issue of commercial corporate dignitary rights arises in other contexts involving other rights. I think, for example, as did Chief Justice Rehnquist, that it is absurd to suggest that commercial corporations have dignitary rights that are offended if they are compelled as corporate entities to speak – or to be connected in some modest way with some government mandated message. By talking about commercial corporate religious exercise rights in Hobby Lobby, the Court arguably reinforces the idea of corporate dignitary rights in other circumstances. Alan FROM: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] ON BEHALF OF Marty Lederman SENT: Monday, July 07, 2014 8:14 AM TO: Law Religion issues for Law Academics SUBJECT: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web On this point, I think we may have at least some degree of consensus: The issue is not corporate v. noncorporate, or for-profit v. nonprofit; it is, instead -- and has been ever since Prince, a case involving individuals acting in the commercial sector for religious, nonprofit reasons -- whether and under what circumstances exemptions should be afforded in the commercial setting. Also, as I have been blogging since the outset of the case, the issue is not the religious exercise of the commercial enterprise -- it's absurd to say that any religion imposes obligations on Hobby Lobby, Inc. -- but instead the religious exercise of those who make decisions on its behalf. I think the Alito opinion is best understood to confirm this conclusion. To be sure, at a couple of points he refers to permitting the RFRA suit to be brought by Hobby Lobby itself. But there's no doubt that it's the Greens and the Hahns, in their capacity as corporate directors, whose religious exercise is at issue: -- Congress did not discriminate in this way AGAINST MEN AND WOMEN WHO WISH TO RUN THEIR BUSINESSES as for-profit corporations in the manner required by their religious beliefs. -- Congress provided protection for PEOPLE LIKE THE HAHNS AND GREENS -- the HAHNS AND GREENS have a sincere religious belief that life begins at conception. They therefore object on religious grounds to providing health insurance that covers methods of birth control . . . . Ultimately, the Court holds that protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga, and Mardel protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies. I think this formulation doesn't make sense conceptually -- the corporations don't exercise religion. Therefore it would
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
I appreciate your prompt response, Eugene. Part of our disagreement clearly relates to our understanding of social reality and I don't know that there is much that can be usefully discussed in that regard. The passage you quote and other language in the majority's opinion describe a world that is so different from the one I experience that it is hard for me to see how this chasm can be crossed. With regard to your argument that citizens may feel worried about alienating board members or any government official who exercises discretionary power over them in all kinds of private contexts, I have no doubt that this may be true in some circumstances. But I never thought this reality undermined the argument that it would be unacceptably coercive for government officials to incorporate activities that pressure citizens during government meetings or proceedings when they are going to decide issues relating to particular individuals. Surely a board member or a judge may be angry at me because I did not contribute to his political campaign or because I publicly endorsed a different candidate for judicial office. I do not believe that justifies board members requesting political donations from citizens for their political party before citizens speak at public comment or a judge asking counsel and litigants for endorsements as the trial begins. I would think these situations are distinctly coercive even if no one could show that town leaders (or the judge) allocated benefits and burdens based on anyone's willingness to respond positively to these requests. But perhaps the difference between private and official conduct is something that only matters to me. And I do not think the coercion is mitigated in any way if a third party designed by the board or the judge is the person asking for donations or endorsements any more than I think coercion is mitigated if the request to stand, bow one's head and pray is expressed by the clergy invited by the board to offer the prayer. I see no respect for religious liberty in the Town of Greece's policy and no respect for religious liberty in the judicial decision that upheld it against constitutional challenge. Alan From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 10:45 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web The short answer is that I'm persuaded by the majority's analysis of the matter: The analysis would be different if town board members directed the public to participate in the prayers, singled out dissidents for opprobrium, or indicated that their decisions might be influenced by a person's acquiescence in the prayer opportunity. No such thing occurred in the town of Greece. Although board members themselves stood, bowed their heads, or made the sign of the cross during the prayer, they at no point solicited similar gestures by the public. Respondents point to several occasions where audience members were asked to rise for the prayer. These requests, however, came not from town leaders but from the guest ministers, who presumably are accustomed to directing their congregations in this way and might have done so thinking the action was inclusive, not coercive. See App. 69a (Would you bow your heads with me as we invite the Lord's presence here tonight?); id., at 93a (Let us join our hearts and minds together in prayer); id., at 102a (Would you join me in a moment of prayer?); id., at 110a (Those who are willing may join me now in prayer). Respondents suggest that constituents might feel pressure to join the prayers to avoid irritating the officials who would be ruling on their petitions, but this argument has no evidentiary support. Nothing in the record indicates that town leaders allocated benefits and burdens based on participation in the prayer, or that citizens were received differently depending on whether they joined the invocation or quietly declined. In no instance did town leaders signal disfavor toward nonparticipants or suggest that their stature in the community was in any way diminished. A practice that classified citizens based on their religious views would violate the Constitution, but that is not the case before this Court. Is there a risk that some people might feel pressured to participate in the prayer? I suppose there is. But there's also a risk that residents who see council members being active in their churches (on their own time), or even being ministers, might feel pressured to show up at council members' churches to ingratiate themselves with council members, or donate to the council members' churches or favorite religious groups. There's certainly a risk that residents who know of council members' deep religious beliefs will avoid criticizing those religions, or religion generally, for fear
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
To be clear, I generally agree with the core opinion in Hobby Lobby. I think it would have been a better opinion if it had not reached the conclusion that commercial corporations have protected religious exercise rights for the reasons I stated in my post. I think a non-profit corporation is distinct in important ways from a for-profit corporation. And we usually protect advocacy groups for instrumental reasons as well as dignitary concerns. But I think my earlier comment may hold true here as well. We can probably protect the dignitary rights of the well-meaning people who have banded together to do something good as a non-profit corporation without recognizing that the corporate entity itself has dignitary rights. Alan -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of mallamud Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 11:23 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web Lots of advocacy groups are organized as corporations. It is a very common means of collecting money and engaging is supporting good causes. The fact that it is a corporation should not undermine the idea that a lot of well-meaning people have banded together to do something good. I do not see that it diminishes their sense of doing good things because we use the fiction that the corporation is doing them. Similarly, though I disagree with the decision in Hobby Lobby for many reasons that have been stated on this list, it is not because Alito uses the fiction of the corporation to uphold what the Court decides are the rights of the Greens and the Hahns. To me, to suggest that the decision gives corporations dignitary rights, which admittedly they do not have gets off the point. To me a big obstacle to tolerance arises when we think of rights as dignitary rights so that the failure to recognize becomes tantamount to failing to respect someone's personhood. Tolerance will be scarce if we all start to think that the presence of a religious symbol that is not ours diminishes our dignity, and so I think we should stay well clear of the concept of dignitary rights. Jon On 2014-07-07 12:55, Alan Brownstein wrote: I agree with most of what Marty says here. Commercial corporations do not have dignitary rights such as the right to exercise religion. Human persons have these rights and one can argue as Alito often but not always does that they should not be held to have waived those rights because they elect to do business in a corporate form. Alito’s opinion is strongest when he focuses on real people. But the majority also holds that commercial corporations are persons for RFRA purposes. I do not think it was necessary to reach that conclusion to protect the Greens and Hahns in this case. Alito suggests that this idea of corporate personhood is a fiction, but it is more than that. It is a caricature of human dignity to describe a commercial corporation as having religious exercise rights. I think that is part of what is provoking some of the criticisms directed at Alito’s opinion. Moreover, by holding that corporations are persons for RFRA purposes, Alito makes it much easier to argue that publicly traded corporations are persons for RFRA purposes as well as closely held corporations. Finally, the issue of commercial corporate dignitary rights arises in other contexts involving other rights. I think, for example, as did Chief Justice Rehnquist, that it is absurd to suggest that commercial corporations have dignitary rights that are offended if they are compelled as corporate entities to speak – or to be connected in some modest way with some government mandated message. By talking about commercial corporate religious exercise rights in Hobby Lobby, the Court arguably reinforces the idea of corporate dignitary rights in other circumstances. Alan FROM: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] ON BEHALF OF Marty Lederman SENT: Monday, July 07, 2014 8:14 AM TO: Law Religion issues for Law Academics SUBJECT: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web On this point, I think we may have at least some degree of consensus: The issue is not corporate v. noncorporate, or for-profit v. nonprofit; it is, instead -- and has been ever since Prince, a case involving individuals acting in the commercial sector for religious, nonprofit reasons -- whether and under what circumstances exemptions should be afforded in the commercial setting. Also, as I have been blogging since the outset of the case, the issue is not the religious exercise of the commercial enterprise -- it's absurd to say that any religion imposes obligations on Hobby Lobby, Inc. -- but instead the religious exercise of those who make decisions on its behalf. I think the Alito opinion
Re: On a different strand of the seamless web
Dear Alan, Thanks for your as-always thoughtful and generous contributions to the conversation. You wrote in your most recent email that [w]e can probably protect the dignitary rights of the well-meaning people who have banded together to do something good as a non-profit corporation without recognizing that the corporate entity itself has dignitary rights. I imagine that this is often, maybe even usually, true. In many cases, non-profits, and advocacy groups, and what the Court calls expressive associations (cf. generally John Inazu on the Freedom of Assembly) seem to function like, and really just to be, vehicles or mechanisms that like-minded individuals employ to achieve or advance their individual-although-shared interests. Do you have any reservations, though, about thinking of groups, associations, societies, and (non-profit) corporations entirely or too much in terms of individuals-with-dignity-banding-together? It seems that this is not how at least *some *corporate or social forms function, or come to be, or regard themselves . . . assuming they *can *regard themselves!. (I tried to write something about this once, about ten years ago now: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=785847). I have a sense that something would be lost if we thought generally about, say, churches and tribes (only) in this way and crafted our laws and doctrines in accord with this way of thinking. Now, maybe the response to my concern is, look, even if the Roman Catholic Church -- or, the corporate entity known as the Diocese of Ft. Wayne-South Bend -- does not 'regard itself' as a set of 'well-meaning people who have banded together to do something good as a non-profit corporation,' the *law *and constitutional doctrine can still do so, without much loss? All the best, Rick Richard W. Garnett Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor of Political Science Director, Program on Church, State Society Notre Dame Law School P.O. Box 780 Notre Dame, Indiana 46556-0780 574-631-6981 (w) 574-276-2252 (cell) rgarn...@nd.edu To download my scholarly papers, please visit my SSRN page http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=342235 Blogs: Prawfsblawg http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/ Mirror of Justice http://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/ Twitter: @RickGarnett https://twitter.com/RickGarnett On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 3:01 PM, Alan Brownstein aebrownst...@ucdavis.edu wrote: To be clear, I generally agree with the core opinion in Hobby Lobby. I think it would have been a better opinion if it had not reached the conclusion that commercial corporations have protected religious exercise rights for the reasons I stated in my post. I think a non-profit corporation is distinct in important ways from a for-profit corporation. And we usually protect advocacy groups for instrumental reasons as well as dignitary concerns. But I think my earlier comment may hold true here as well. We can probably protect the dignitary rights of the well-meaning people who have banded together to do something good as a non-profit corporation without recognizing that the corporate entity itself has dignitary rights. Alan -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of mallamud Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 11:23 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web Lots of advocacy groups are organized as corporations. It is a very common means of collecting money and engaging is supporting good causes. The fact that it is a corporation should not undermine the idea that a lot of well-meaning people have banded together to do something good. I do not see that it diminishes their sense of doing good things because we use the fiction that the corporation is doing them. Similarly, though I disagree with the decision in Hobby Lobby for many reasons that have been stated on this list, it is not because Alito uses the fiction of the corporation to uphold what the Court decides are the rights of the Greens and the Hahns. To me, to suggest that the decision gives corporations dignitary rights, which admittedly they do not have gets off the point. To me a big obstacle to tolerance arises when we think of rights as dignitary rights so that the failure to recognize becomes tantamount to failing to respect someone's personhood. Tolerance will be scarce if we all start to think that the presence of a religious symbol that is not ours diminishes our dignity, and so I think we should stay well clear of the concept of dignitary rights. Jon On 2014-07-07 12:55, Alan Brownstein wrote: I agree with most of what Marty says here. Commercial corporations do not have dignitary rights such as the right to exercise religion. Human persons have these rights and one can argue as Alito often but not always does
Re: On a different strand of the seamless web
entity itself has dignitary rights. Alan -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [1] [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [2]] On Behalf Of mallamud Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 11:23 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web Lots of advocacy groups are organized as corporations. It is a very common means of collecting money and engaging is supporting good causes. The fact that it is a corporation should not undermine the idea that a lot of well-meaning people have banded together to do something good. I do not see that it diminishes their sense of doing good things because we use the fiction that the corporation is doing them. Similarly, though I disagree with the decision in Hobby Lobby for many reasons that have been stated on this list, it is not because Alito uses the fiction of the corporation to uphold what the Court decides are the rights of the Greens and the Hahns. To me, to suggest that the decision gives corporations dignitary rights, which admittedly they do not have gets off the point. To me a big obstacle to tolerance arises when we think of rights as dignitary rights so that the failure to recognize becomes tantamount to failing to respect someones personhood. Tolerance will be scarce if we all start to think that the presence of a religious symbol that is not ours diminishes our dignity, and so I think we should stay well clear of the concept of dignitary rights. Jon On 2014-07-07 12:55, Alan Brownstein wrote: I agree with most of what Marty says here. Commercial corporations do not have dignitary rights such as the right to exercise religion. Human persons have these rights and one can argue as Alito often but not always does that they should not be held to have waived those rights because they elect to do business in a corporate form. Alito’s opinion is strongest when he focuses on real people. But the majority also holds that commercial corporations are persons for RFRA purposes. I do not think it was necessary to reach that conclusion to protect the Greens and Hahns in this case. Alito suggests that this idea of corporate personhood is a fiction, but it is more than that. It is a caricature of human dignity to describe a commercial corporation as having religious exercise rights. I think that is part of what is provoking some of the criticisms directed at Alito’s opinion. Moreover, by holding that corporations are persons for RFRA purposes, Alito makes it much easier to argue that publicly traded corporations are persons for RFRA purposes as well as closely held corporations. Finally, the issue of commercial corporate dignitary rights arises in other contexts involving other rights. I think, for example, as did Chief Justice Rehnquist, that it is absurd to suggest that commercial corporations have dignitary rights that are offended if they are compelled as corporate entities to speak – or to be connected in some modest way with some government mandated message. By talking about commercial corporate religious exercise rights in Hobby Lobby, the Court arguably reinforces the idea of corporate dignitary rights in other circumstances. Alan FROM: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [3] [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [4]] ON BEHALF OF Marty Lederman SENT: Monday, July 07, 2014 8:14 AM TO: Law Religion issues for Law Academics SUBJECT: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web On this point, I think we may have at least some degree of consensus: The issue is not corporate v. noncorporate, or for-profit v. nonprofit; it is, instead -- and has been ever since Prince, a case involving individuals acting in the commercial sector for religious, nonprofit reasons -- whether and under what circumstances exemptions should be afforded in the commercial setting. Also, as I have been blogging since the outset of the case, the issue is not the religious exercise of the commercial enterprise -- its absurd to say that any religion imposes obligations on Hobby Lobby, Inc. -- but instead the religious exercise of those who make decisions on its behalf. I think the Alito opinion is best understood to confirm this conclusion. To be sure, at a couple of points he refers to permitting the RFRA suit to be brought by Hobby Lobby itself. But theres no doubt that its the Greens and the Hahns, in their capacity as corporate directors, whose religious exercise is at issue: -- Congress did not discriminate in this way AGAINST MEN AND WOMEN WHO WISH TO RUN THEIR BUSINESSES as for-profit corporations in the manner required by their religious beliefs. -- Congress provided protection for PEOPLE LIKE THE HAHNS AND GREENS -- the HAHNS AND GREENS have a sincere religious belief that life begins at conception. They therefore object on religious grounds to providing health insurance that covers methods
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
I’m not a fan of official prayers. But it seems a plausible view of religious liberty that (1) people should have exemptions, when possible, that let them practice their religion, but (2) government institutions should have considerable latitude to include religious speech in their programs – so long as they don’t force people to pray – especially given longstanding American traditions approving of some such inclusion. (In particular, being in the audience while a chaplain is praying strikes me as not that much to “endure,” and I say this as someone who is irreligious; while being required to participate would be wrong, I think, being required to simply be present in the room, or to briefly leave the room for the occasion, seems to me as quite a different matter.) The view I describe here may not be everyone’s view of religious liberty, but it seems to me quite coherent, and has something to recommend it. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Ira Lupu Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 9:51 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web I very much appreciate Doug's post and his reference to Town of Greece. The Becket Fund, which has very ably represented Hobby Lobby and others in the contraceptive cases, insists that it is committed to religious liberty. (Likewise many on this list.) But in Town of Greece, the Becket Fund filed an amicus brief on the side of the Town; it was aligned not with religious liberty, but rather with the power of government to shove prayer in the face of citizens who wanted to interact with elected officials without having to endure a worship exercise for someone else's faith. If this is our constitutional tradition, as many argued, it is not a tradition of religious liberty. On Sun, Jul 6, 2014 at 1:01 AM, Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edumailto:dlayc...@virginia.edu wrote: On Sat, 5 Jul 2014 11:02:00 -0700 Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edumailto:mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu wrote: * * * * Christians died rather than burn a pinch of incense to the emperor. Yes they did. A point they entirely forget as they impose brief Christian prayer services on their fellow citizens at public meetings, and insist that it's no big deal to go through of motions of praying to a God you don't believe in. Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Ira C. Lupu F. Elwood Eleanor Davis Professor of Law, Emeritus George Washington University Law School 2000 H St., NW Washington, DC 20052 (202)994-7053 Co-author (with Professor Robert Tuttle) of Secular Government, Religious People (forthcoming, summer 2014, Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.) My SSRN papers are here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=181272#reg ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
I take it that the authors of those briefs saw a law requiring someone to do something that they thought was sinful as different from a practice under which people end up hearing things from the government that they might find offensive or alienating. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Alan Brownstein Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 11:10 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web I think Chips and Doug's key points in their posts are worth emphasizing. Many briefs supporting the town of Greece and the Court's opinion in that case treated the religious liberty arguments of plaintiffs with complete distain. The authors of many of those briefs and the same justices who wrote the opinion upholding coercive and discriminatory prayer practices in Town of Greece insisted that the religious liberty of Hobby Lobby must be protected. As Chip suggests, a tradition, or support for a legal regime, of religious liberty for me but not for you cannot be fairly described as a commitment to religious liberty. An incidental, but not insignificant, result of this kind one-sided support for religious liberty is the burden it places on those of us who try to defend and promote religious liberty and equality for people on both sides of the culture wars. Alan ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
When people are asking government officials to exercise their discretion in a way that seriously impacts their important interests in a courtroom, at an administrative proceeding, in a government bureaucrat's office, in a classroom , or at the town hall meeting in a small town, I think it is intrinsically coercive for the officials or the chaplain they designate to ask the petitioners to stand, bow their heads and join them in collective prayer. Indeed, I cannot imagine anyone not feeling pressured and coerced in that situation -- just as I believe there is a significant likelihood that a member of the small audience remaining seated while everyone else stands or leaving the room as the prayer begins will have an adverse influence of the officials who are being asked to exercise their discretion. Alan From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] on behalf of Volokh, Eugene [vol...@law.ucla.edu] Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 11:07 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web I’m not a fan of official prayers. But it seems a plausible view of religious liberty that (1) people should have exemptions, when possible, that let them practice their religion, but (2) government institutions should have considerable latitude to include religious speech in their programs – so long as they don’t force people to pray – especially given longstanding American traditions approving of some such inclusion. (In particular, being in the audience while a chaplain is praying strikes me as not that much to “endure,” and I say this as someone who is irreligious; while being required to participate would be wrong, I think, being required to simply be present in the room, or to briefly leave the room for the occasion, seems to me as quite a different matter.) The view I describe here may not be everyone’s view of religious liberty, but it seems to me quite coherent, and has something to recommend it. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Ira Lupu Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 9:51 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web I very much appreciate Doug's post and his reference to Town of Greece. The Becket Fund, which has very ably represented Hobby Lobby and others in the contraceptive cases, insists that it is committed to religious liberty. (Likewise many on this list.) But in Town of Greece, the Becket Fund filed an amicus brief on the side of the Town; it was aligned not with religious liberty, but rather with the power of government to shove prayer in the face of citizens who wanted to interact with elected officials without having to endure a worship exercise for someone else's faith. If this is our constitutional tradition, as many argued, it is not a tradition of religious liberty. On Sun, Jul 6, 2014 at 1:01 AM, Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edumailto:dlayc...@virginia.edu wrote: On Sat, 5 Jul 2014 11:02:00 -0700 Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edumailto:mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu wrote: * * * * Christians died rather than burn a pinch of incense to the emperor. Yes they did. A point they entirely forget as they impose brief Christian prayer services on their fellow citizens at public meetings, and insist that it's no big deal to go through of motions of praying to a God you don't believe in. Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Ira C. Lupu F. Elwood Eleanor Davis Professor of Law, Emeritus George Washington University Law School 2000 H St., NW Washington, DC 20052 (202)994-7053 Co-author (with Professor Robert Tuttle) of Secular Government, Religious People (forthcoming, summer 2014, Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.) My SSRN papers are here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=181272#reg ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list
Re: On a different strand of the seamless web
unlike Doug, I do not believe corporations are people, that they have religious believes or that they have souls (that is of course an understatement); corporations are legal vehicles designed to make money for the investors and to shield the investors from having to use their own assets to cover losses and debts. I do not believe any faith thinks Hobby Lobby has an immortal soul, can go to heaven or hell, or that it prays. So, I guess I am unpersuaded that there can be an exemption issue for a corporation From: Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu To: Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com; Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2014 11:36 AM Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web Unlike Paul, I think the exemption issues and the government-sponsored prayer issues are very different. On Sun, 6 Jul 2014 01:36:45 -0700 Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com wrote: Doug's point here seems to encapsulate what is the problem for so many of us. Those in the majority would make the rest of us burn incense, or listen to their prayers, or pay for their prayers or pray with them, or obey their views on sex and marriage and children, and we can go on and on. And many in the majority forget that they were once persecuted, whether it was Christians killed in Rome or Baptists whipped in Virginia, and now that they have the power, they would impose it on us, whether it is health care if you are unfortunate enough to have to work for Hobby Lobby or prayers if you are unfortunate enough to need something form the government of the Town of Greece. Paul Finkelman (writing from Granada, where the evidence and reminders of religious intolerance and persecution is everywhere) From: Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2014 1:01 AM Subject: On a different strand of the seamless web On Sat, 5 Jul 2014 11:02:00 -0700 Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu wrote: * * * * Christians died rather than burn a pinch of incense to the emperor. Yes they did. A point they entirely forget as they impose brief Christian prayer services on their fellow citizens at public meetings, and insist that it's no big deal to go through of motions of praying to a God you don't believe in. Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: On a different strand of the seamless web
Eugene has obviously never been to a city council meeting or town board to ask for something. Those in the audience in Town of Greece who do not pray are setting themselves up to lose before the board; those who are religious outsiders (by dress for example) are being told, from the opening of the meeting that they count less. The Town said it invited clergy from all churches in the town. But that is a subterfuge since many people in the town (a suburb of Rochester) will attend a temple, mosque, synagogue, etc. that is not in the town. So the town is essentially confirming their outsider status even before they come before the council/town board. Eugene, your view is utterly incoherent if you connect it to the reality of small town politics and how government at that level works. Paul Finkelman From: Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edu To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2014 2:07 PM Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web I’m not a fan of official prayers. But it seems a plausible view of religious liberty that (1) people should have exemptions, when possible, that let them practice their religion, but (2) government institutions should have considerable latitude to include religious speech in their programs – so long as they don’t force people to pray – especially given longstanding American traditions approving of some such inclusion. (In particular, being in the audience while a chaplain is praying strikes me as not that much to “endure,” and I say this as someone who is irreligious; while being required to participate would be wrong, I think, being required to simply be present in the room, or to briefly leave the room for the occasion, seems to me as quite a different matter.) The view I describe here may not be everyone’s view of religious liberty, but it seems to me quite coherent, and has something to recommend it. Eugene From:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Ira Lupu Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 9:51 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web I very much appreciate Doug's post and his reference to Town of Greece. The Becket Fund, which has very ably represented Hobby Lobby and others in the contraceptive cases, insists that it is committed to religious liberty. (Likewise many on this list.) But in Town of Greece, the Becket Fund filed an amicus brief on the side of the Town; it was aligned not with religious liberty, but rather with the power of government to shove prayer in the face of citizens who wanted to interact with elected officials without having to endure a worship exercise for someone else's faith. If this is our constitutional tradition, as many argued, it is not a tradition of religious liberty. On Sun, Jul 6, 2014 at 1:01 AM, Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu wrote: On Sat, 5 Jul 2014 11:02:00 -0700 Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu wrote: * * * * Christians died rather than burn a pinch of incense to the emperor. Yes they did. A point they entirely forget as they impose brief Christian prayer services on their fellow citizens at public meetings, and insist that it's no big deal to go through of motions of praying to a God you don't believe in. Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Ira C. Lupu F. Elwood Eleanor Davis Professor of Law, Emeritus George Washington University Law School 2000 H St., NW Washington, DC 20052 (202)994-7053 Co-author (with Professor Robert Tuttle) of Secular Government, Religious People (forthcoming, summer 2014, Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.) My SSRN papers are here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=181272#reg ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
It seems to me that Justice Alito rather nicely avoided having to deal with the question of how much a corporation is like a real person (including whether it has a soul, etc.), and also avoided dealing with the well-developed piercing the corporate veil doctrine by adopting a view of corporations long held by law-and-economics scholars. In this view, a corporation is not primarily an artificial entity or person. Instead it is merely a nexis of a large number of implicit and explicit contracts among investors, managers, employees, suppliers and customers that define their relative rights. Alito says at pg. 18: A corporation is simply a form of organization used by human beings to achieve desired ends. An established body of law specifies the rights and obligations of the people (including shareholders, officers, and employees) who are associated with a corporation in one way or another. When rights, whether constitutional or statutory, are extended to corporations, the purpose is to protect the rights of these people. [P]rotecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga, and Mardel protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies. Indeed many small businesses involved in other cases challenging the contraceptive mandate are organized as Limited Liability Companies instead of closely held corporations. LLC's are more clearly creatures of contract. It will be interesting to see whether this nexis of contracts approach will be used in other corporate cases having nothing to do with RFRA. Howard Friedman From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] on behalf of Volokh, Eugene [vol...@law.ucla.edu] Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 7:11 PM To: Paul Finkelman; Law Religion issues for Law Academics; Douglas Laycock; Scarberry, Mark Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web Paul: Are you seriously claiming that Doug believes a corporation has a soul? Or even that he believes it is a person (the singular of “people”) in the lay sense of the word “person,” as opposed to the Dictionary Act sense of the person? Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Finkelman Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 1:48 PM To: Douglas Laycock; Law Religion issues for Law Academics; Scarberry, Mark Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web unlike Doug, I do not believe corporations are people, that they have religious believes or that they have souls (that is of course an understatement); corporations are legal vehicles designed to make money for the investors and to shield the investors from having to use their own assets to cover losses and debts. I do not believe any faith thinks Hobby Lobby has an immortal soul, can go to heaven or hell, or that it prays. So, I guess I am unpersuaded that there can be an exemption issue for a corporation From: Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edumailto:dlayc...@virginia.edu To: Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.commailto:paul.finkel...@yahoo.com; Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edumailto:mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2014 11:36 AM Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web Unlike Paul, I think the exemption issues and the government-sponsored prayer issues are very different. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
Hobby Lobby itself as a corporation may not have religious beliefs or an immortal soul, but the decisions made for the corporation are made by people who do, as is true for all corporations, large and small. If a corporation had, for instance, engaged int trade with South Africa during apartheid, people wouldn't have simply condemned the corporation. They would have condemned the people who made the decision for the corporation to trade with South Africa. Similarly, it is people with religious beliefs who make the decisions for Hobby Lobby. It is people who establish the values that the corporation operates under and it is people who make the decisions as to what activities the corporation will engage in. There are people who have deeply held religious beliefs that govern the way they live in every aspect of their lives, and to require them to act amorally, solely in pursuit of money, in the office is to say that the law which is supposed to guarantee religious liberty also mandates abject hypocrisy. Either that, or corporations should have on the board room door, Abandon faith, all ye who enter here. Brad From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Finkelman Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 3:48 PM To: Douglas Laycock; Law Religion issues for Law Academics; Scarberry, Mark Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web unlike Doug, I do not believe corporations are people, that they have religious believes or that they have souls (that is of course an understatement); corporations are legal vehicles designed to make money for the investors and to shield the investors from having to use their own assets to cover losses and debts. I do not believe any faith thinks Hobby Lobby has an immortal soul, can go to heaven or hell, or that it prays. So, I guess I am unpersuaded that there can be an exemption issue for a corporation ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: On a different strand of the seamless web
The boat for equitable treatment in chaplaincy practices sailed in 2005. Simpson v. Chesterfield County Bd. of Supervisors (4th Cir.) explicitly taught that a local government may favor Judeo-Christian practices and prayers over others, but also implicitly taught that other practices may be refused even if offered and otherwise consistent with the rules simply because they are disliked. Cyndi Simpson was told she could not participate as a chaplain because she was Wiccan, and for no other reason. (One wonders whether cert would be denied now as it was back then.) I would mildly disagree, however, with characterizing chaplaincy practices uniformly as shov[ing] prayer in the face of citizens. That is surely characteristic of one type of practice--where the prayergiver is outward facing and preaches more at the gallery than the legislators--but it is not characteristic of the quieter, more inward-facing practices found in the houses of Congress. Town of Greece's fatal flaw is that it blessed the historical practice encompassed by Marsh without realizing that said historical practice was pretty much only the latter type, not the former. The liberty for me but not for thee scent has been in the air for a while and should come as no surprise. The question in my mind is whether the Court will be willing to incorporate elements of religious ethics from other traditions into their decisions as they did with Hobby Lobby and the doctrine of cooperation with evil. My wager is no, but I will allow myself to be surprised. Jeremy On Jul 6, 2014, at 1:10 PM, Alan Brownstein aebrownst...@ucdavis.edu wrote: I think Chips and Doug's key points in their posts are worth emphasizing. Many briefs supporting the town of Greece and the Court's opinion in that case treated the religious liberty arguments of plaintiffs with complete distain. The authors of many of those briefs and the same justices who wrote the opinion upholding coercive and discriminatory prayer practices in Town of Greece insisted that the religious liberty of Hobby Lobby must be protected. As Chip suggests, a tradition, or support for a legal regime, of religious liberty for me but not for you cannot be fairly described as a commitment to religious liberty. An incidental, but not insignificant, result of this kind one-sided support for religious liberty is the burden it places on those of us who try to defend and promote religious liberty and equality for people on both sides of the culture wars. Alan From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] on behalf of Ira Lupu [icl...@law.gwu.edu] Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 9:51 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web I very much appreciate Doug's post and his reference to Town of Greece. The Becket Fund, which has very ably represented Hobby Lobby and others in the contraceptive cases, insists that it is committed to religious liberty. (Likewise many on this list.) But in Town of Greece, the Becket Fund filed an amicus brief on the side of the Town; it was aligned not with religious liberty, but rather with the power of government to shove prayer in the face of citizens who wanted to interact with elected officials without having to endure a worship exercise for someone else's faith. If this is our constitutional tradition, as many argued, it is not a tradition of religious liberty. On Sun, Jul 6, 2014 at 1:01 AM, Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu wrote: On Sat, 5 Jul 2014 11:02:00 -0700 Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu wrote: * * * * Christians died rather than burn a pinch of incense to the emperor. Yes they did. A point they entirely forget as they impose brief Christian prayer services on their fellow citizens at public meetings, and insist that it's no big deal to go through of motions of praying to a God you don't believe in. Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Ira C. Lupu F. Elwood Eleanor Davis Professor of Law, Emeritus George Washington University Law School 2000 H St., NW Washington, DC 20052 (202)994-7053 Co-author (with Professor Robert Tuttle) of Secular Government, Religious People (forthcoming, summer 2014, Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co
RE: On a different strand of the seamless web
Sandy: I appreciate your point, and it is certainly a view held by many serious scholars. But my point is simply that it isn't at all obvious that this indeed involves an Establishment Clause violation - and that, especially it isn't obvious that this involves religious liberty (Alan's phrase, to which I was specifically responding), and indeed many serious scholars think the two are quite different. Among other things, being ordered to do (or not do) something strikes me as more clearly a matter of liberty than hearing things from the government. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Levinson, Sanford V Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 1:31 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web I think that once one is hearing from government offensive theological views, the Establishment Clause is fully implicated. It is prudence, and nothing else, that legitimizes In God We Trust. (That's why the court had to invent an implausible standing doctrine to avoid deciding in Newdow's favor.) But I think there's a role for prudence, as against all principle all the time. Sandy Sent from my iPhone On Jul 6, 2014, at 2:26 PM, Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edumailto:vol...@law.ucla.edu wrote: I take it that the authors of those briefs saw a law requiring someone to do something that they thought was sinful as different from a practice under which people end up hearing things from the government that they might find offensive or alienating. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Alan Brownstein Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 11:10 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web I think Chips and Doug's key points in their posts are worth emphasizing. Many briefs supporting the town of Greece and the Court's opinion in that case treated the religious liberty arguments of plaintiffs with complete distain. The authors of many of those briefs and the same justices who wrote the opinion upholding coercive and discriminatory prayer practices in Town of Greece insisted that the religious liberty of Hobby Lobby must be protected. As Chip suggests, a tradition, or support for a legal regime, of religious liberty for me but not for you cannot be fairly described as a commitment to religious liberty. An incidental, but not insignificant, result of this kind one-sided support for religious liberty is the burden it places on those of us who try to defend and promote religious liberty and equality for people on both sides of the culture wars. Alan ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: On a different strand of the seamless web
Even in the rare case of government-sponsored prayer where no one is coerced to participate, the government is gratuitously telling citizens that its religion is true and their religion is false. Telling people what religious beliefs are true was one important element of the classic establishments. But apart from all that, in the real world citizens who attend the meeting are forced to participate in the prayer. The government pressures religious dissenters directly in these situatins, and it creates the occasion for intense pressure on religious dissenters from their fellow citrizens. To deny or ignore all this, as the Court did in Greece, is simply out of touch with human reality. On Sun, 6 Jul 2014 21:57:27 -0700 Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edu wrote: Sandy: I appreciate your point, and it is certainly a view held by many serious scholars. But my point is simply that it isn't at all obvious that this indeed involves an Establishment Clause violation - and that, especially it isn't obvious that this involves religious liberty (Alan's phrase, to which I was specifically responding), and indeed many serious scholars think the two are quite different. Among other things, being ordered to do (or not do) something strikes me as more clearly a matter of liberty than hearing things from the government. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Levinson, Sanford V Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 1:31 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web I think that once one is hearing from government offensive theological views, the Establishment Clause is fully implicated. It is prudence, and nothing else, that legitimizes In God We Trust. (That's why the court had to invent an implausible standing doctrine to avoid deciding in Newdow's favor.) But I think there's a role for prudence, as against all principle all the time. Sandy Sent from my iPhone On Jul 6, 2014, at 2:26 PM, Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edumailto:vol...@law.ucla.edu wrote: I take it that the authors of those briefs saw a law requiring someone to do something that they thought was sinful as different from a practice under which people end up hearing things from the government that they might find offensive or alienating. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Alan Brownstein Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 11:10 AM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: On a different strand of the seamless web I think Chips and Doug's key points in their posts are worth emphasizing. Many briefs supporting the town of Greece and the Court's opinion in that case treated the religious liberty arguments of plaintiffs with complete distain. The authors of many of those briefs and the same justices who wrote the opinion upholding coercive and discriminatory prayer practices in Town of Greece insisted that the religious liberty of Hobby Lobby must be protected. As Chip suggests, a tradition, or support for a legal regime, of religious liberty for me but not for you cannot be fairly described as a commitment to religious liberty. An incidental, but not insignificant, result of this kind one-sided support for religious liberty is the burden it places on those of us who try to defend and promote religious liberty and equality for people on both sides of the culture wars. Alan ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: On a different strand of the seamless web
I think individual humans, who believe that they have souls, do not forfeit their right to religious liberty when they incorporate their business. I believe that exemptions are about letting them live their lives, and restricting or prohibiting government-sponsored prayer is about letting everyone else live theirs. On Sun, 6 Jul 2014 13:47:49 -0700 Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com wrote: unlike Doug, I do not believe corporations are people, that they have religious believes or that they have souls (that is of course an understatement); corporations are legal vehicles designed to make money for the investors and to shield the investors from having to use their own assets to cover losses and debts. I do not believe any faith thinks Hobby Lobby has an immortal soul, can go to heaven or hell, or that it prays. So, I guess I am unpersuaded that there can be an exemption issue for a corporation From: Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu To: Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com; Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2014 11:36 AM Subject: Re: On a different strand of the seamless web Unlike Paul, I think the exemption issues and the government-sponsored prayer issues are very different. On Sun, 6 Jul 2014 01:36:45 -0700 Paul Finkelman paul.finkel...@yahoo.com wrote: Doug's point here seems to encapsulate what is the problem for so many of us. Those in the majority would make the rest of us burn incense, or listen to their prayers, or pay for their prayers or pray with them, or obey their views on sex and marriage and children, and we can go on and on. And many in the majority forget that they were once persecuted, whether it was Christians killed in Rome or Baptists whipped in Virginia, and now that they have the power, they would impose it on us, whether it is health care if you are unfortunate enough to have to work for Hobby Lobby or prayers if you are unfortunate enough to need something form the government of the Town of Greece. Paul Finkelman (writing from Granada, where the evidence and reminders of religious intolerance and persecution is everywhere) From: Douglas Laycock dlayc...@virginia.edu To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu; Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2014 1:01 AM Subject: On a different strand of the seamless web On Sat, 5 Jul 2014 11:02:00 -0700 Scarberry, Mark mark.scarbe...@pepperdine.edu wrote: * * * * Christians died rather than burn a pinch of incense to the emperor. Yes they did. A point they entirely forget as they impose brief Christian prayer services on their fellow citizens at public meetings, and insist that it's no big deal to go through of motions of praying to a God you don't believe in. Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
