by Ken Briggs
Though Chick-fil-A president, Dan Cathy, got major media attention for making remarks that were widely understood as anti-gay, he also provided a rationale for rejecting unlimited campaign spending by corporations whether he intended to or not.
In response to critics who accused him of bigotry, and threatened to boycott his business, Cathy quite rightly in my opinion spelled out the difference between his personal views and policies of his restaurants which, he said, didn't refuse service to anyone.
In so doing, he denied flatly that there was any such thing as a "Christian business," adding, "Christ never died for a corporation. He died for you and me."
There you have it. Corporations aren't people. On that basis, the Supreme Court in Citizens United was wrong to assert that they were people and could, under that assumption, give all they wanted to campaigns.
Conservatives have generally backed the Court's decision based on its reasoning that campaign spending falls under the broad "freedom of speech" clause. But Cathy undermines that logic.
Perhaps religious conservatives will hear Cathy and take another look. If Jesus came to save persons and corporations aren't persons, the entire, shaky edifice of Citizens United collapses.
It seems to me that honesty would compel such reconsideration.
