Public Comment

If Corporations Are People, I'm All for DOMA

By Gar Smith
Thursday April 04, 2013 - 07:49:00 PM
Gar Smith

Under the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, corporations are now granted the rights of living people -- specifically the right to make unlimited financial contributions to political campaigns. all in the name of "free speech." 

Of course, "the law in all its majesty" also allows the homeless and the poor the same right to give massive amounts of personal wealth to politicians and political campaigns. 

But if we accept that corporations are people, what other rights follow? 

Well, human individuals have the right to marry. And that is why those who cherish the traditional definition of marriage support DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act. 

And make no mistake -- corporations DO marry. Except, in the parallel corporate universe, the procedure is better known as "merger." 

Under law (as informed by GOP-centric "family values" advocates), marriage is a contract between a single man and a single woman granted for the sole purpose of procreation -- having and raising children. 

As Mitt Romney famously emphasized, "Corporations are people, my friend." Thus, under Mitt's definition, US corporate lifestyles exist in flagrant violation of bedrock family values. 

When we consider Exxon-Mobil, is Exxon the gentleman and Mobil the lady? Is it Mr. Goldman and Mrs. Sachs? Mr. Merrill and Mrs. Lynch? 

No. The fact is that corporations are neither male nor female and thus, under neo-con lore, they are ineligible to participate in the sacred practice of marriage/merger. 

These corporations are, in short, involved in impermissible liaisons –- "same-sexless-marriages," to be precise. 

There is an added behavioral problem with these disreputable corporate citizens. Many of them are so fond of illicit marriage/mergers that they overdo it and engage in multiple engagements. Polyandry is a practice banned under federal law. If corporations are people, it follows that PricewaterhouseCoopers and AOL/Time Warner should be compelled to divorce. 

Such serial mergers/marriages must be seen as an affront to all right-thinking neo-cons. Such abominations cry out for swift condemnation and require a call for a speedy and public dissolution. 

Corporate marriages also fail to pass moral muster because they do not lead to procreation. Corporations -- even under the most robust and fertile mergers -- do not produce true offspring. (And, as a matter of fact, no "living" corporation has yet produced a detectible heartbeat.) Worse, the activities of many multinationals result in explosions, fires and industrial accidents that serve to create, not progeny, but widows and orphans. 

More often than not, these "corporate citizens" support their own endless growth by vanquishing the competition and swallowing smaller companies whole. Instead of producing vital, independent progeny, corporate citizens frequently prosper through the antisocial practice commercial cannibalism. 

Under DOMA, our course of action is clear. The government -- lead by the Republican Party -- must put an end to illegal and immoral corporate mergers. 

It's time to restore the sanctity of marriage and the probity of mergers between corporate persons. 

The law is clear: One man, one woman. 

Sorry Sears and Kmart. Sorry Daimler Benz/ Chrysler. Sorry Disney Pixar.