Posted on 07/13/2014 7:46:17 PM PDT by Coleus
Roughly 50 people lined up in front of Hobby Lobby’s new Totowa store Saturday to protest the company’s role in a recent Supreme Court decision that says the company can choose not to cover contraception for its employees through the Affordable Care Act.
The Oklahoma City-based arts and crafts chain is owned by a Christian family that says it tries to run the business applying its religious beliefs. One of the parties in the decision by the high court, the family had argued that the Obamacare requirement that all contraception be covered violated a 1993 federal law that protects religious freedom. The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., agreed. Alito wrote that the court ruling only held for “closely held” for-profit corporations such as Hobby Lobby.
The Burwell v. Hobby Lobby decision has been attacked by many women’s rights groups, and Democrats in the U.S. Senate are moving to introduce legislation that would sidestep the ruling. A companion bill would have a much harder time passing in the Republican-controlled House.
For two hours Saturday afternoon, the protesters in front of the Totowa Hobby Lobby — newly opened as of July 7 — held hand-lettered signs with such slogans as “Family planning is a family value,” “Women’s values trump corporate dictates,” and “My religious freedom has been given to corporations.”
They also chanted “Hobby Lobby, hear the news — religious views are for the pews.”
“I’m here to support women’s choice,” said Jean Star of Wyckoff. “I think the court made a very, very bad decision. A corporation is not a person.”
The protest was organized by the Rev. Kathleen Green, a minister with the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood. Green is on the board of the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of New Jersey, the church’s lobbying arm. She was joined by members of the National Organization for Women’s New Jersey chapter, the League of Women Voters of New Jersey and Planned Parenthood.
Green said the argument against the court ruling could be summed up as “My body, my faith, my choice.”
“Religious liberty is for people,” Green said. “Hobby Lobby doesn’t go to church on Sunday. Corporations can’t speak for all women. This decision puts all American women’s lives at risk based on one corporation’s owners.”
The company has said it did not oppose all contraception, just morning-after pills and intrauterine devices, or IUDs, since they believed these were similar to abortion.
“Medical studies will tell you the IUD is the most effective form of contraception used by women and especially low-income women,” Green said.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, in a dissenting opinion in the case, wrote that the cost of an IUD is nearly equivalent to a month’s full-time pay for workers earning the minimum wage.
A Hobby Lobby store manager said she could not comment on the protest, and the company’s spokesman could not be reached.
Posted on Hobby Lobby’s corporate website is a quote from Barbara Green, a company co-founder, saying the family was “overjoyed” by the Supreme Court ruling.
“The nation’s highest court has re-affirmed the vital importance of religious liberty as one of our country’s founding principles,” she said. “The Court’s decision is a victory … for all who seek to live out their faith.”
Jane Gordon, a protester from Manhattan, said she believed the Hobby Lobby owners had a genuine religious objection to covering contraception, but the court decision was wrong.
“People are entitled to practice their faith,” she said, “but not to impose their faith on other people.”
Protesters handed out leaflets to those entering and leaving the store, listing “7 reasons NOT to shop at Hobby Lobby.”
The leaflet argued that the company’s grievance is not with birth control, but is a political attack on the Affordable Care Act, since before the act was passed, the company’s insurance coverage included the forms of contraception they took exception to through the legal case.
The leaflet also said Hobby Lobby’s 401(k) plan has invested in companies that produce the same types of contraception that Hobby Lobby didn’t want to pay for through insurance. The leaflet cited the company’s 2012 employee benefit plan’s annual return filing.
The leaflet also listed the addresses of several other hobby stores in the area for those who want to boycott Hobby Lobby.
It all boils down to give me more free sh*t...
Looks like they’re on private property. Why weren’t they arrested for trespassing?
No worries, they’ll just take all of those jobs somewhere else.
Reminder: Hobby Lobby Provides Coverage for 16 Types of Contraception
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3174342/posts
I went into H.L. a couple days ago and couldn’t find a single thing that I wanted to buy...........and I really looked.
Maybe nearer Christmas time.
I have no doubt that this is the closest any of these protesters have ever been to a Hobby Lobby store.
Meanwhile actual customers are going to go out of their way to give Hobby Lobby additional business.
The Stupid got to be Stupid
Reproductive Justice, Rev. Kathleen Green, 3-23-14
http://youtu.be/VDemhGrHWqk
Look at those poor little girls in the picture. Dragged to the protests by some hyphinated named single mom and scared to death of the shouting. How sick.
sounds like an arts-and-crafts store like ac moore...I don’t shop at either of them.
Fools on parade.
sue them for slander..
Hobby Lobby is not denying them anything.
They are simply saying they won’t pay for 4 drugs/items that cause abortions.
“People have the God-given right to practice their faith and act according to their conscience,” she said, “but government cannot impose its anti-faith and anti-conscience on the people or corporations.”
there fixed it.
Stupid people being stupid.
Hardly news.
Right.
How about if they just fire you?
Oh, its “reverend” Kathy and her made up in the 1960 “church” with less members than a tpical MSNBC show’s viewers!
Feminists used to say:
“I am strong. I am invincible. I am independent. I am yada yada yada.”
Feminists now cry out:
“We cannot pay for the poor immoral CHOICES that we make. We demand that you pay for them.”
These are Soros or other liberal whale funded goons.
Go away.
I’m pretty sure NOW stands for “Nasty Old Whores”...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.