Shannon Sankey Source 1

What were the effects of the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case?

• Rotondaro, Vinnie. Ruling Extends Corporate Personhood: Case was about Owners' Individual Rights, Say Hobby Lobby Supporters. 50 Vol. National Catholic Reporter, 2014. Web.

This first source is an article from a newspaper that outlines the two arguments concerning the ruling in the supreme court case, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. The article begins by giving context about how this ruling means that owners can hold onto their religious beliefs even after they make their business a corporation. This article argues that those in support of the ruling say it's not about whether a women has the right to contraceptives but who is going to pay for them. Because the owners of the corporation, in this case Hobby Lobby, would ultimately be paying for a contraception they don't support, not paying for the contraception they believe they should be protected under the Religious Freedom Act of 1993. Supporters of the ruling state that corporations are like little democracies and they deserve to have religious freedoms that would allow a kosher market to be closed on Sabbath and a Catholic company to refuse contraception they believe to cause abortions. This article also presents the other side of the argument which states that this ruling will create a pandoras box and open up more issues that the courts haven't clearly addressed. In this case the owners of Hobby Lobby were in agreement with their beliefs, but what happens when one owner is pro-life and the other is pro-choice? And what happens when this ruling is applied to discrimination against same sex couples? The article also argues that this ruling has strengthened the "culture war" going on in this country. The line has been dug deeper between the ideologies on the right and the left, the article states that this ruling is being used as ammunition on both the far right and far left to benefit their political and financial gains, all of this covering up the real question about whether or not corporations are taking away individual rights. 

The new idea that this article has brought to light is the idea of a "culture war" in this country and how the Hobby Lobby ruling has effected it. I like the argument that the article presents when it says that both the far right and the far left are using the ruling for their own political and financial gains and how this distracts from the real issue at hand. Instead of answering questions about how this ruling will effect people working within the corporation and how far their rights will extend to, the political parties are using it to further their campaign efforts and dilute the question of religious freedom and who it and what it extends to. This article brings up an entire different aspect to "corporate personhood" and its effects in politics that I never even thought about considering. It's a different aftermath from this ruling that I wasn't expecting to find. 

This source has led me to ask, how does "corporate personhood" and previous Supreme Court rulings effect politics today? Through this ruling and the Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee, the rights of corporations have expanded into political leverage on both sides. So I would ask something like has "corporate personhood" effected the way politics is done and what are the advantages and disadvantages of it? In what ways has it changed politics? I have an answer about how the two political sides are using this ruling to further their campaign efforts and I would just ask more questions about how corporations are changing the way politics are done.