In August 2011, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney expressed his reluctance to raise taxes on people.  When he was asked whether he would consider raising taxes on corporations, he said “Corporations are people, my friend.”  His words generated much controversy as many people refuse to put businesses in the same category as individuals.  However, there has been a historical trend toward legal personhood for corporations.  That trend is tied to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

The 13^th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States abolished slavery, and the 15^th Amendment gave voting rights to black men.  The 14^th Amendment, on the other hand, was broader in scope and expanded civil rights protections for Americans.

The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, guarantees that states and the federal government cannot “deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause in the amendment have been used in many important decisions taken by the Supreme Court.  For example, in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in a case known as Brown v. Board of Education, that segregated school facilities were unconstitutional because they failed to protect black and white students equally under the law.  In 1965, the Supreme Court ruled that a state ban on the use of contraceptives violated a couple’s right to marital privacy, an essential liberty protected under the Due Process Clause.  In the 1974 Roe v. Wade case, the court decided that a woman’s right to abortion was also a right to privacy protected by the 14^th Amendment.

The 14^th Amendment was apparently written for individuals and does not mention corporations.  But corporations have, for a long time, sought rights afforded to individuals, such as the rights to own property, enter into contracts, etc.  In 1886, in deciding a case about state taxes imposed on a railroad company, a Court ruling used language that appeared to grant corporations the same rights as an individual.  These rights were further expanded in 1978 when the Court allowed corporations to spend money on state ballot initiatives as part of their First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

However, federal elections remained free from direct corporate influence as federal law only allowed individuals and political action committees to donate.  In 2010, in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, corporations were given the right to spend unlimited amounts of money on federal, state and local elections.  Objections were raised against these developments.  Not only they appeared to violate the original intent of the constitution by treating artificial entities as “We the people,” but there was also a danger of perverting American democracy by allowing special interests to flood political campaigns with huge amounts of money.  However, from a legal perspective, corporations were increasingly being treated like people.  In 2014, in the Burnell v. Hobby Lobby Stores case, the Court granted the right of closely-held companies, which aren’t traded on the stock market, to file for exemptions to federal laws on religious grounds.

It has been assumed for a long time that Republicans and conservatives (and therefore evangelicals) are more friendly to corporations than Democrats.  They were also far more supportive of Citizens United and Burnell than Democrats were.

Recently, after the Georgia legislature passed a new law restricting voting rights in a clear attempt to disenfranchise black voters, corporations such as Coca Cola and Delta Airlines took a stand and strongly criticized the new law.  Major League Baseball even decided to pull the 2021 All-Star game from Atlanta.

Conservatives reacted to these actions with outrage.  The Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, warned companies that they “will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order.”  He also said: “So my warning, if you will, to corporate America is to stay out of politics.  It’s not what you’re designed for. And don’t be intimidated by the left into taking up causes that put you right in the middle of one of America’s greatest political debates.”

McConnell’s critics saw hypocrisy in his attempt to keep corporations out of politics given that he had defended Citizens United and had always advocated for loosening restrictions on businesses that wanted to support political causes with their money.  This time, his discontent apparently comes from the fact that the actions taken by the businesses are more aligned with what he calls “far-left mobs,” or in other words, the Democrats.

Political observers point out that McConnell is in a difficult situation because of the populist tendencies of the new Republican party led by Trump.  Corporations now tend to take a stand not only on economic issues such as taxation, but also on social issues.  On social issues, they tend to align themselves with the Democrats and are therefore very much at odds with Republican populism, a tribal movement which, among other things, supports restrictions on the voting rights of non-whites.  As McConnell tries to navigate through the changes occurring within his own party, he finds himself forced to take contradictory positions.

The corporations that criticized the Georgia law were obviously taking a stand on diversity.  They were not merely yielding to pressure from the left.  For decades, there has been a trend toward diversity in the corporate world.  It is not merely an expression of good will by a few well-meaning leaders.  There is, in fact, a business case for diversity, which is a recognition that no race, gender or ethnic group has a monopoly on competence.  It is the result of research that has demonstrated convincingly that diversity leads to improvement to the bottom line.  This fact is made even more relevant to global companies which often have to make use of local talent in the countries they operate in, and must create structures that accommodate cultural differences.  Even though this may be bad news to those with tribal tendencies, it is simply a fact that the demographic distribution in American companies has changed drastically in the last thirty years.

This does not mean that corporations have been successful in their efforts to promote diversity.  But they have made a conscious effort to improve corporate cultures to make them more inclusive in order to retain employees from diverse backgrounds.  They have also shown less tolerance for employee behavior that makes minorities uncomfortable in the workplace.

From a Christian perspective, it is ironic that corporations have been moving in the right direction, recognizing that treating others with decency is actually good for business.  It seems the religious right has been moving in the opposite direction.  I remember my company’s efforts, nearly two decades ago, to protect the rights of LGBTQ employees.  A conservative Christian wrote letters to the leadership, raising strong objections to the new policies because his Bible-based beliefs condemned them.  After a while, the leadership thanked him for expressing his opinion, and informed him that it was now a closed matter that would no longer be debated.

During that episode, as a Christian, I asked myself if I could ever use my Bible-based beliefs to hurt another human being, who was only trying to make a living, by denying him the basic rights of an employee.  My answer: those who are willing to do that should go back and read their Bible more carefully.

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:26-29

With all the New Testament emphasis on loving and caring for my neighbor, can I find passages in the Bible that condemn the LGBTQ community? Yes.  Do I care? No!