Mikayla Long, from left, explains to her friends Eilish Flannery and Amy Malo the moral dilemma thrust upon Hobby Lobby, a Christian-owned company that refuses to include abortion-inducing drugs in its employee health care plan.
President Obama today begins a potentially lethal economic pressure against a chain of hobby supply stores run by a Christian family, insisting the owners of Hobby Lobby are not free to exercise religious conscience because their business is a corporation.
The federal government is imposing a F$1.3 million daily fine to destroy the Green family’s business or otherwise coerce them into violating their sincerely held religious convictions about the life of the unborn. The U.S. is demanding that the company include abortion inducing drugs in its employee health plan.
Ann McBryar: “I think they should provide their people with insurance, and if they want to leave [abortion and morning-after pills] out, leave it out. There are things not covered on my Blue Cross that I pay for.”
Another customer of an artsy-crafty sort who frequents Hobby Lobby in Hixson is Sherry Actkinson, who creates pictures with latchwork, the use of wool and a number kit for creative images. She says she is not aware of the company’s Christian outlook, but she says she’s glad to learn Hobby Lobby is closed on the Lord’s Day. “I am a Christian, as well, so I am glad to hear about it.”
Three teenage girls bustle out of the store this busy day. One of them is Amy Malo, whose mother Karen has been for some time in the Tulis family prayers on account of her stage 4 cancer. Joining Amy, 16, is Mikayla Long, 17, who breaks the news about threats to Hobby Lobby to Amy and another friend, Eilish Flannery, 16.
“The new health care mandate states that all companies *** have to offer their employees contraception coverage and abortion coverage, and as far as I know,” Mikayla says, “Hobby Lobby is a Christian owned and run company and they are refusing to do so, and that is leaving them in trouble with the government and the government can shut them down due to the health care mandate.”
“Catholic belief is against contraception and abortion,” says the student at Notre Dame high school and member of the church of Rome, “and so I go along with that.” She says separation of church and state forbids the state from attempting to pinch “religious practices or moral beliefs.”
Customers stream out of the prosperous Hobby Lobby store offering after-Christmas discounts in Chattanooga.
Feds deny free exercise of religion
The Obama administration argues that the Christian convictions of David and Barbara Green and their children cannot stand to block the abortion rule because they engage in commerce as part of a corporation. “Hobby Lobby is a for-profit, secular employer, and a secular entity by definition does not exercise religion,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Stuart Delery said in a filing submitted in the U.S. District Court in Oklahoma. “Because Hobby Lobby is a secular employer. It is not entitled to the protections of the Free Exercise Claus or RFRA [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act]. *** This is because, although the First Amendment freedoms of speech and association are ‘right[s] enjoyed by religious and secular groups alike,’ the Free Exercise Clause ‘gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations.’”
The second argument put forth by Mr. Obama is that a law that oppresses Christians is permissible if the law is written neutrally and is generally applicable.
Downward pressure
The Greens are evangelical Christians who have always “sought to run Hobby Lobby in harmony with God’s laws and in a manner which brings glory to God.” The company runs 500 stores in 41 states. The Green family, through the store and a Christian book chain, employ 13,000 souls. Hobby Lobby pays full-time workers F$13 per hour or more, well above the federal minimum wage.
The war against principled sector of the national economy will have grievous effects, and will put a downward force upon business to avoid centralization and size to avoid federal controls.
Regular Hobby Lobby shoppers, Beverly Blackwell, left, and her mother, Connie Nixon, talk about Uncle’s plan to ruin the company.
Source: Terence P. Jeffrey, “Obama Administration: We Can and Will Force Christians to Act Against Their Faith,” CNSnews.com
I will continue to fully support Hobby Lobby, and if possible get a job there. I will continue to fight the attack on Christian-owned businesses by writing and calling my so-called representatives in Congress and also signing any petition possible against this anti-constitutional mandate.
People it is not jut Obama. It’s the whole political system from yours, from congressmen to your senators to the special interest groups. It is just SAD, SAD, SAD!
Mr. Orwell “only missed it by that much.” This is totally unfair and UNCONSTITUTIONAL. You have the right to supply the basic necessities of health insurance. To me, a woman getting pregnant because of not using sensible judgement does not constitute a requirement for a law being passed forcing an employer to supply morning-after birth control. The Green family does not believe in murder.
However that is what the government is telling them they must do by passing this “law” and forcing them to abide by it. Mr. and Mrs. Green, you have my support. STAND UP FOR YOU BELIEFS.
God will uphold you.
I was absolutely infuriated when the HHS mandate was passed, but the fact that they enforce it even on institutes that are against abortion is just terrible. Thank you for defending God’s order before the order of man. I am going to see if it wouldn’t be too far of a drive for me to get my school building supplies from Hobby Lobby.