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.
You know it's a powerful grass roots movement when one hundredth of one percent of the population comes out to protest.
How do we know if these people are locals?
Actually, that's not what it's about at all. It's about their (the Godless radical Left) ultimate goal to outlaw Christianity. Period.
If the NAGS want us to pay for their contraception, give each one of them a penny and tell them to hold it between their knees. It’s cheap and works every time.
As Mark Levin pointed out, it's the legislature that has the final word, not the courts. Why won't our side do the same on rulings motivated by judicial activism, iow, rulings that go against the Constitution?
The United Church of Christ was once the New England Congregationalists dating back to colonial times. The same church known for the sermons of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). Ichabod.
10-1 most of them don’t even know what Hobby Lobby covers for birth control.
“Green is on the board of the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of New Jersey, the church’s lobbying arm.”
Time to look at their tax exempt status.
Because the Republican Party is in cahoots with the Democrat Party in the destruction of the U.S. It is the job of the Republican Party to appease the sheep and keep them calm and serene until slaughterday. And as evidenced by obamacare, they are doing their job well.
The very first sentence in the article is a lie.
If I was Hobby Lobby I’d announce to all the employees that they’re closing down immediately and they can thank the protestors out front.
“Religious liberty is for people,” Green said. “Hobby Lobby doesn’t go to church on Sunday. Corporations can’t speak for all women.”
They aren’t, idiot.
Makes holding a dime between your knees seem like a bargain.
“People are entitled to practice their faith,” she said, “but not to impose their faith on other people.”
I love how the liberal mind works. Not agreeing to pay for something is forcing your faith on other people.
Darth Vader Ginsberg kept trying to change the subject. Hobby Lobby starts people off at about $14 an hour from what I have heard
Reproductive Justice, Rev. Kathleen Green, 3-23-14
http://youtu.be/VDemhGrHWqk
I just listened to that. Unitarian Universalist progressive and liberal faith ..... LOL. So these folks just sort of create their own religion? So truth to them is whatever they want it to be? Sounds like a spiritual journey to nowhere.
I strongly second that! I REALLY want to support them. Wish they sold tools, or lumber, or groceries. I bought a picture frame, but there really just isn't much else there that I use or need.
Sometimes you just have to shake your head at the abject stupidity of the low-information voters.
“Roughly 50 people lined up”
Very rough. Looks like maybe 20 going by the picture.
The Vagina Monotones.
Wow - fifty people - devastating.....
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