Hobby Lobby CEO open letter: “Honoring God is more important than turning a profit”

Hotair ^ | 01/05/2013 | Ed Morrissey

[SeekAndFind]

Normally I'd be inclined to run something like this on a Sunday, when I like to explore more faith-based topics. However, today is Hobby Lobby Appreciation Day, where consumers who support the Christian ownership's stand against the HHS mandate that attempts to impose a highly restrictive definition of religious expression can put their money where their mouths are. Since I don't really have a hobby at the moment, I'll instead offer a passage from the open letter written by Hobby Lobby CEO David Green, who explains why he's decided to spend a lot of money and risk even more to fight the HHS regulation that would force him to act against his religious principles.

We’re Christians, and we run our business on Christian principles. I’ve always said that the first two goals of our business are (1) to run our business in harmony with God’s laws, and (2) to focus on people more than money. And that’s what we’ve tried to do. We close early so our employees can see their families at night. We keep our stores closed on Sundays, one of the week’s biggest shopping days, so that our workers and their families can enjoy a day of rest. We believe that it is by God’s grace that Hobby Lobby has endured, and he has blessed us and our employees. We’ve not only added jobs in a weak economy, we’ve raised wages for the past four years in a row. Our full-time employees start at 80% above minimum wage.

But now, our government threatens to change all of that. A new government health care mandate says that our family business MUST provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions, which means that we don’t cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill. We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the Biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one. If we refuse to comply, we could face $1.3 million PER DAY in government fines.

Our government threatens to fine job creators in a bad economy. Our government threatens to fine a company that’s raised wages four years running. Our government threatens to fine a family for running its business according to its beliefs. It’s not right. I know people will say we ought to follow the rules; that it’s the same for everybody. But that’s not true. The government has exempted thousands of companies from this mandate, for reasons of convenience or cost. But it won’t exempt them for reasons of religious belief.

So, Hobby Lobby – and my family – are forced to make a choice. With great reluctance, we filed a lawsuit today, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, asking a federal court to stop this mandate before it hurts our business. We don’t like to go running into court, but we no longer have a choice. We believe people are more important than the bottom line and that honoring God is more important than turning a profit.

It’s worth pointing out that the mandate doesn’t exempt actual religious organizations either, such as Catholic charities, Presbyterian hospitals, Lutheran schools, and so on. Why? That’s the crux of the issue: the Obama administration is attempting to redefine religious expression to only those activities which take place within the four walls of a place of worship, or those activities restricted only to those of a single faith. That means that Catholic hospitals would qualify only if they refused to treat and employ any non-Catholics, for instance. Can you imagine those lawsuits?

The mandate for free birth control, which is already cheap and readily available for anyone who wants it (and has federal subsidies for Medicaid recipients already in place through Title X), is just a Trojan horse in an attack on religious liberty — and even more, for freedom of choice. If businesses want to offer “free” birth control (which will get funded by premium hikes), they can already do so; no one is stopping them. Same for schools, hospitals, and private citizens who want to donate money to family-planning clinics on their own. Barack Obama and Kathleen Sebelius want to strip that choice from Americans and force everyone to subsidize the procreative choices of everyone else, even those tens of millions whose religious beliefs have heretofore never had to be part of public policy. That’s the invasion of privacy, and it’s people like David Green who are being exploited.

Update: Added a bit to the second-to-last paragraph, and also wanted to include Hobby Lobby’s online shopping website link. You can support the company from the comfort of your own home.

[TheWriterTX]

We have Hobby Lobby and Mardels here in Texas. Bought all my homeschooling supplies at Mardels.

I say Hobby Lobby should start cutting hours everywhere so that less than 50 people on their staff are full time.

And blame Obama at every turn.

[TheOldLady]

You can buy from Hobby Lobby online. [smiles]

[Terry Mross]

I have 2 questions for the blackmailed SC justice Roberts.

If this is a tax, why do some pay more than others and some pay none at all?

Why is the daily fine higher than the actual taxes?

And now a statement to Roberts: May the government whose citizens you helped to destroy turn on you and destroy you and everything you hold dear.

[darrellmaurina]

7 posted on Sun Jan 06 2013 10:46:45 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time) by SeekAndFind: “A fine of $1.3 Million a day will quickly bankrupt Hobby Lobby (unless the courts support their freedom to practice their faith <-— FAT CHANCE OF THAT WITH THIS SUPREME COURT).”

You may be right. However, a fine of $1.3 million per day corresponds to $474.5 million per year. According to Post #2, this company had $2.28 billion in annual revenue in 2011.

I realize that's probably gross revenue, not net profits.

If so, that fine corresponds to 20.8 percent of their gross revenue. If ObamaCare turns into a 20 percent tax on conservative Christian businesses, there are ways around the problem. After all, that type of tax rate is not as bad as what some states impose on tobacco, alcohol, or gasoline, and lots of people are still willing to buy those products.

The best option is probably a major increase in sales to people angry over Obamacare. When combined with moving to a franchise model in which local store managers get the opportunity to own their own businesses which “just happen” to have less than the Obamacare threshold of 50 employees per business unit, that could effectively fix the problem.

For local stores which can't drop below 50 employees, maybe Hobby Lobby could agree with Chik-fil-A to cross-hire people beyond the Obamacare “small employer” limit, so each company has its “extra” employees working 29 hours a week? I'm sure Chik-fil-A would love to open more restaurants in or near Hobby Lobby buildings.

12 posted on Sun Jan 06 2013 10:58:07 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time) by I cannot think of a name: “We’re going to be replacing our refrigerator soon, and honestly, if I could get one someplace for $1200, and Hobby Lobby was selling them for $1500, I’d buy there. To save this country we’ve tried darn near everything except concentrated pocketbook firepower. Fortunately my wife and I have lived a modest life and we can afford it. Every time I see a store expressing any kind of Christian idea in their advertising, I save it. If I could make EVERY dollar I spend go only to morally upright companies I would - even if it meant paying more.”

What “I cannot think of a name” says below is **EXACTLY** right. If Hobby Lobby can't find an American company willing to sell refrigerators, maybe they can call LG Electronics which might like an outlet paying higher profits to manufacturers than Wal-Mart. South Korea started enforcing its 59-year-old abortion ban again recently after years of tolerating abortion (short story: the outgoing South Korean president was an elder in a conservative Presbyterian church), and the old law banning virtually all abortions except those for rape and incest was upheld by the Korean Supreme Court last fall after the government started enforcing the abortion ban again.

Bottom line — having a backup plan is a really good idea. Government is slow, it's cumbersome, and it rarely works as fast as the free market can come up with “work-around” solutions to evade burdensome regulations.

Liberal tax accountants do this stuff all the time with tax shelters. Let's use tax laws for conservative advantage on Obamacare.

[darrellmaurina]

Imagine a receipt looking like this coming from your friendly local Hobby Lobby:

Hobby Lobby
Thank you for your business.
Fight socialism — buy from us!
Refrigerator, special order: $1,500
State and local sales tax (8.5%): $127.50
Obamacare penalty tax: (20.8%): $312.00
Your total: $1,939.50

It won't take long before that 20.8 percent tax turns into a major political liability — and not for Hobby Lobby.

[BlatherNaut]

“I wish there was a HL near me so I could spend a few bucks there.”

You can also order from HL online.

[JohnBrowdie]

the white house was fully supportive of this statement until they realized that hobby lobby wasn’t talking about BHO.

[Blogger]

Incorporate two companies. 1 is the Hobby company. 1 is the Lobby company. They share the same facility wherever they operate and the same employees. But the Hobby company only employees part timers for 29.9 hours a week and the Lobby company only employees part timers for 11.1 hours a week. Give all the employees a raise for having to deal with 2 W2s. Close the Hobby Lobby company until we get a new administation.

[loveliberty2]

"That’s the crux of the issue: the Obama administration is attempting to redefine religious expression to only those activities which take place within the four walls of a place of worship. . . ."

This statement capsulizes the stark difference between America's philosophical assertions in its 1776 Declaration of Independence about the Source and nature of the rights of individual human beings and the 1787 Constitution's Bill of Rights limiting government power -

versus -

the so-called "progressive" movement's insistence that a collection of imperfect human beings organizing themselves as "government" are the originators and definers of every other person's "rights."

The current Administration's actions relating to isolating religious expression and practice "to only those activities which take place within the four walls of a place of worship. . . ." are more akin to the USSR's policies in the latter decades of the 20th Century than they are to America's Constitutional protections of freedom of conscience, of religious expression and practice, and of freedom of speech.

These are prerogatives never delegated to the government of the United States by its Constitution's structuring of its powers.

[crosshairs]

Imagine the news covering the perp walks of a bunch of innocent people.....

Would public opinion stay with obama...

When it's explained that it's just white Christians being persecuted, hussein supporters will cheer.

[butterdezillion]

The Hawaii registrar issued a certified letter of verification to AZ SOS Ken Bennett indirectly confirming that Obama has no legally-established birth facts (since the HI BC is legally non-valid). Without legally-established birth facts there is no way that Obama could ever “qualify” as required by the 20th Amendment in order to “act as President”. Given that Obama is now legally known to have “failed to qualify”, it is now known that only Joe Biden could nominate SCOTUS justices for the last 4 years. That means that both Sotomayor and Kagan cannot Constitutionally be SCOTUS justices, not having been nominated by someone Constitutionally qualified to nominate them.

To see how Onaka’s verification confirms that Obama has no legally-established birth facts, see http://butterdezillion.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/complete-klayman-letter-to-bauer.pdf

Hobby Lobby is in a very critical position right now, which can be used for good if they are willing to speak the truth to power. If anybody knows an attorney who could look at this and help influence the Hobby Lobby attorneys to use this opportunity, please do whatever you can to help that happen.

[PMAS]

He could make each store it’s own separate corporation with 49 employees each and then have them all join a buying association that he runs.

[PMAS]

Maybe you can research the company’s CEO’s name, then do a search with the CEO’s name, “campaign contributions” - I at least try to find out who they gave their money to.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“Example: we’re going to be replacing one of our cars this year Even though I have my preferred brands for technical reasons, if a manufacturer spoke up against zero’s nonsense, the ongoing attempts to make perversion normal, or any of the other secular liberal nonsense - I’d buy from them!”

I bought a new-to-me FORD Escape SUV last year for just that very reason. Ford took NO Taxpayer Dollars when 0 was handing them out last time around.

Ford’s ‘spokesman,’ Mike Rowe, is VERY conservative - nearly Tea Party-ish in his beliefs...which mesh with mine.

And I let the dealer now WHY I was buying from them and not another dealer/brand. They were VERY appreciative and bent over BACKWARDS to make me happy.

(Paid her off a year later - I’m not stupid. No matter the sweet interest rate, I HATE having a car payment!)

[I cannot think of a name]

I bought a Ford for the very same reasons in 2010. Barely a few months later they made this big announcement about how ‘domestic partners’ were now going to be treated the same as married partners. Sigh.

And I’ll probably buy another Ford because the last one has been good, and if you do a little research you’ll find that virtually every car manufacturer is pandering to the freak circus. Not really much to differentiate one from the other.

[HKMk23]

Hobby Lobby might opt to give all of their employees vouchers for their choice of coverage with a healthcare expense sharing plan such as Medi-Share, or Samaritan Ministries. There’s another one out there, too, that I don’t have the name of, at the moment.

Medi-Share
http://mychristiancare.org/medi-share/

Samaritan Ministries
http://www.samaritanministries.org/

More info on such organizations here:
http://www.healthcaresharing.org/hcsm/

[YHAOS]

Thanks for the ping!

[manc]

I need one too and held off for the last 2 years but can;t hold off for another 4 more years and as much as I think Hobby Lobby has some nice stuff though expensive I don;t need anything more from them and it woudl be nice if they had more electoral stuff.

We only go into conservative or Christian stores now, places like homo depot, JC Penny,sears etc

Hell my wife moved out of MA and left her fmaily because we were fed up of giving our tax money to the socialists and then having our votes ignored.
We at least walk the talk and it would be nice iof millions of other conservatives moved out and spent their hard earned money in stores which have our views instead of socialist, homosexual, commie though they are all the same really

[Casie]

I thought I would post these pics here as well.

This is the Hobby Lobby in Shreveport, La. We went early Saturday afternoon (on the 5th). All 6 rows of parking were nicely filled! The only open spots were over in front of the neighboring furniture store or way out near the restaurants. We encountered lots of friendly shoppers and staffers having a good time. It did feel different from the Chick-Fil-A day. At Chick, people were buzzing. The crowd was optimistic and even cocky about the upcoming election and the country. The Hobby Lobby crowd was super nice, upbeat and friendly but no one was talking politics.

[Casie]