You have to hand it to wealthy self-absorbed theocrats these days. Hiding behind the thin veneer of religious freedom, they feel entitled to break the law of the land at the drop of a hat. Such is the case with Hobby Lobby, owned and operated by yet another over pious social conservative clan pretending to stagger under the weight of big government tyranny, all simply to be a thorn in the side of human progress and basic decency:
NewsOK — David Green, Hobby Lobby founder and CEO, hinted that the company wouldn’t comply with the law.
“Our family is now being forced to choose between following the laws of the land that we love or maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful and supported our family and thousands of our employees and their families,” Green said in September. “We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate.”
Hobby Lobby and Mardel operate more than 500 stores and employ more than 13,000 people.
Gosh David, you martyr stud, why don’t you just go ahead and cross your legs, stretch out your arms, and break out the red food coloring for a good ole fashioned symbolic crucifixion? Because if your religion states you must force other people to observe the same beliefs or you aren’t a true Scotsman, then yes, your religious beliefs are in direct conflict with the Constitution of the United States of America. And that is clearly every bit as bad as having your feet and wrists nailed to a tree and left, hanging, to slowly die from a horrific combo of thirst, sepsis, and exposure. IF N0T WOR5E!!one1!
I’m going to go out on a very short limb here and guess that at least several dozen, and more likely hundreds of those thousands, of women working at Hobby Lobby might need hormone replacement therapy or other forms of birth control for reasons other than being a careless swing’n slut (As opposed to, you know, a careless swing’n prick, which is awesome), and if someone wants to be a careless swing’n slut on their own time, why is it the business of Hobby Lobby’s owners anymore than it is the person who sits in the cube next to them or who rides on the same bus? If it were simply a question of religious freedom, and the owners were as decent and caring as they’d like to fantasize they are, the idea of forcing their narrow religious beliefs onto unwilling, low paid employees who do not share them — with potentially serious and perhaps even fatal consequences — would give them a serious sad.
It’s shit like this that makes me wish Progressive Jesus really would come back, just so we could watch him extrude these assholes through the eye of a needle and put the living remains on the express elevator straight to hell. Baring that unlikely event, we’ll have to rely on the court system. Which so far has ruled the company is a not a church, or a church annex, or even a charity. What a surprise, eh? Yes, it turns out Hobby Lobby is a purely for profit entity, one that eagerly serves the broader public irrespective of a customer’s faith, and therefore does not qualify for a number of already overly generous exclusions for legitimate religious organizations that oppose contraception.
Will NOT shop at Hobby Lobby, even if they were the last source on earth for beading supplies. I’d give up beading first.
I guess we all have our idiosyncracies. What sucks is there’s always a stooge lined up — let’s call him Squealor just for reference — to sooth the powerful with praise of their divinely inspired genius and self evident statesmanship, and wax poetically to the masses that both attributes are so great and so undeniable the normal rules simply do not apply.
When I still lived near one of these stores, I got tired of their holier-than-thou attitude and stopped shopping there long ago. There was a Micheal’s store in the other direction, and they were sufficiently secular to be open on Sunday, so I took my business there.
I stopped doing business with Chik-fil-a long ago for the same reason.
Now I no longer live near either store – California (at least the part where I live) is sooo much saner than Texas.
Oh,yeah, if they hadn’t lost my business a LONG time ago, they would definitely lose it now. My feeling is that if you think contraception is wrong, you shouldn’t use contraceptives. What other people choose to do is none of your damned business. Sanctimonious, holier-than-thou creeps helping to convince more and more people that religion is just not worth the trouble.
I work for hobby lobby and am outraged at what the business is doing in regards to contraception and morning after pill. They sent me a letter removing the coverage from the plan at least until January. I have posted the letter on boycott hobby lobby on Facebook plus gave it to the secular coalition of america. I even had a customer demand we have a petition signing against the mandate, saying that women can go to clinics to get whatever they want for free. I pointed in her face and said one, I pay for for my insurance and shouldn’t have to pay more to get contraception. Two, clinics don’t give whatever for free I have to pay and shouldn’t have to pay on top of insurance i pay for already. Three, , Hobby lobby is an equal opportunity employer and they have no right to shove their beliefs down my throat when I don’t have their same beliefs. Yes, I may have made a scene but I had to stand up for myself and for women who work there!
“…maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful…”
At least he laid the BS on nice and thick. Because Jesus was all about running successful businesses, keeping worker salaries low to moderate so that the owners could make even more money, and so forth. Jesus never mentioned things like giving up all your money to help the poor, etc. Biblical principles indeed…
unbound beat me to mentioning it. Yes, I’m sure your religion is what makes a Hobby Lobby, WeTF that is, a successful business. I got a Master of Bible-Based Business degree, too. You wouldn’t believe the sheer amount of enterprise-orientated information the Good Book contains.
#’s 5&6 beat ME to it.
” the religious beliefs that have made our business successful”
That should make a most interesting thesis for an advanced degree in economics. Possibly an entire business management curriculum somewhere – like under a rock.
Also, a business chain with that many branches & employees? Never heard of it.
This is part of an overall trend for employers to interfere in the personal lives of employees. They don’t sell anything unique that I need so it is no big deal that I don’t shop with them. They are not alone in being intrusive toward employees. Look around and you can find many folks you really do not want to patronize. Not all of them make it so obvious.
Well, at least when I move I will be across the street from a LYS, so I won’t have any shortage of yarn. I’m gonna have to find a new place to get jewelry wire…oh we’ll. fuck ’em.
As any corporate HR person will tell you, health insurance is part of an employee’s overall compensation that also includes paid sick days, paid vacation, paid holidays, stock options, bonuses, and salary.
If an employer can specify what services the employee can obtain with health insurance, the employer can also specify what employees can purchase with the money they earn.
She better not be seen buying condoms.
Odd story about the Hobby Lobby guy…this past July, he purchased the building that I have worked in for the past 14 or so years. He is turning it into the ‘Museum of the Bible’. see
http://dcist.com/2012/07/bible_museum_finds_heavenly_home_in.php
He is kicking out the 40 or so small businesses in the Washington Design Center, where I work, to make way for the museum.
He’s continuing to lease to the Small Business Administration in the other part of the building, because that government lease is golden.
Funny right?…
right?…
I’m just lucky that I have other options
I noticed one of those stores across the street from one of the major malls in town and thought, “Oh, I wonder if they have model rockets and planes and trains and automobiles?” I walk in and think, “Oh, it’s like Michael’s with a little more room in the aisles.” And I found a half aisle with the stuff I was looking for, but no non-cube multicolor dice, trading cards, or RPG books. And the little notice on the front door of the store about how they are closed on Sunday so that their employees can worship really turned me off. I guess they don’t have any Jews or Muslims working for them. I’m so glad I didn’t give them any money.
Oh, joy. The overtly religious once again defining what it is to be overtly religious, pious, sanctimonious a$$holes…
I was turned off by their bullshit years ago. I see things haven’t improved. I’ll keep my money, thanks. Target and Chick-fil-eh…screw you too.
As usual, these folks are confusing a right, as individuals, to practice without hindrance the faith of their choice, with an institutional privilege to deny others what amounts to the same choice. Freedom of religion boils down to freedom of conscience; and if everybody doesn’t have that right, nobody does. Freedom to practice your indidvidual religion doesn’t translate to a right to impose it; and if you’re a business owner with the power to dictate to your employers what the insurance they pay for can cover, based on your religious principles, then, yes…you are imposing.
Correction:
should, of course, be “power to dictate to your employees…”