A Corporation is a Person, but Only When the Left Says So

Along with most liberals, New York State Attorney General A. G. Schneiderman is upset over the United States Supreme Court's decision in Burwell V. Hobby Lobby. In a Op-Ed posted July 17th, 2014, in the Huffington Post, he wrote,

The Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision was both factually and legally flawed. It accepted false assertions about the science of how contraception works, and it expanded the absurd legal principle that corporations are people by essentially finding that corporations can hold religious beliefs. (1)

First of all, the science of contraception works in favor of the decision, in that only those four contraceptives that allow insemination and then deny continued life were impacted.

Secondly, were it not for what he calls the absurd legal principle that corporations are people they could not be sued as people, a practice fondly accepted and practiced by the left.

Shelly Morgan, Demand Media, notes

Corporations can sue and be sued under the law, just like people. The legal fiction that corporations are people allows the corporation to assert some basic 14th Amendment rights in court, including the right to due process and the right to equal protection. Whole bodies of law, such as environmental regulations, can be applied to corporations precisely because these business entities are treated like people in courts of law.(2)

Schneiderman's missive is more political homily than anything else. It reads like a manifesto on his feelings on gender related issues.

Like Attorney Generals before him, Schneiderman wields the Op-Ed/ Press Release like a flag, calling attention to himself as he seeks to gain favor with the masses. And, like so many liberals before him, he ignores the benefits of corporate personhood when it benefits him, and embraces it when it suits his pet causes.


(1) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-t-schneiderman/fighting-back-against-hob_b_5597240.html

(2) http://smallbusiness.chron.com/corporation-considered-artificial-person-under-law-57912.html

A Good Idea That Doesn't Go Far Enough

According to JTA.org, Legislation introduced in January by  New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver would ban state funding to colleges that help fund organizations that boycott in any country that has an institution of higher learning chartered by the Board of Regents of the University of the State of NY.

Silver said it was in response to the American Studies Association’s boycott of Israel and its academic institutions. Some New York based universities have branches in Israel.

“Colleges should not use funds to support boycotts, resolutions or any similar actions that are discriminatory and limit academic opportunities,” he said.

JTA.org says,  “The bill, which currently has 48 sponsors out of 150 members, would cut funding to institutions that pay dues to groups such as the ASA or which subsidize travel to its conferences.”

Excuse me? When is it acceptable for institutions of higher learning to fund any organization with donated funds, regardless of whether or not the recipient is in the practice of boycotting anything? Whose money is being sent to fund these boycotts? Any organization that receives state or federal funding should not be allowed to give that money to anyone else. We should stop giving tax dollars to organizations that have so much money that they can give it away to other groups.

Nether should an organization give funds donated to it to another organization without expressed permission from the individuals making the donations in the first place. How about legislation that would make that practice a crime?

Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/01/27/news-opinion/united-states/n-y-state-bill-ends-funding-to-schools-linked-to-boycott-groups#ixzz2rjNBaQll

Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/01/27/news-opinion/united-states/n-y-state-bill-ends-funding-to-schools-linked-to-boycott-groups#ixzz2rjNaUOYr