Written by Jack Kenny
When David Green started his family-owned business 40 years ago, it was an enterprise housed in a garage, financed by a $600 bank loan. The first retail store, he recalled in a recent article for USA Today, “wasn’t much bigger than most people’s living rooms, but we had faith that we would succeed if we lived and worked according to God’s word.” Forty years later, it appears that the faith and the work have been abundantly rewarded. The company, Hobby Lobby, is now one of the nation’s largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 stores in 41 states.
But the faith of Green and his family stands to be penalized, not rewarded, by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandate that requires coverage of contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs, with no deductibles or co-pay, in the health insurance employers provide for their workers. Green, a devout Baptist, says his Christian faith and conscience will not permit him to comply with that mandate, issued in pursuance of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare).
“Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions,” Green wrote. “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.”
Since the penalty for noncompliance is $100 per employee per day, Green, with thousands of employees nationwide, says the cost to him would be an estimated $1.3 million a day, forcing the company in short order to close its doors and go out of business. Like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and an array of religiously affiliated schools, hospitals, and other non-profits, Hobby Lobby in September filed suit in U.S. District Court to overturn the HHS mandate. That, in turn, has inspired a backlash against the company by those who believe employees have a right to have their sex lives subsidized. A “Boycott Hobby Lobby” page soon appeared on Facebook, and the page administrator claimed it was having the desired effect.
“I’ve been to two Hobby Lobby parking lots today and they were fairly empty,” read one posting. “I used to have trouble finding a parking spot! I think the boycott is catching on!” If so, then the Green family is already paying a price for adhering to the principles of their conservative Christian faith.
The penalty will be more severe, even fatal, to the company if and when the fines are levied. “They’re being told they have two choices,” attorney Lori Windham of the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty told Fox News in September, “Either follow their faith and pay the government half a billion dollars or give up their beliefs.” That is “a choice no one should have to make,” said Windham, representing the company in its lawsuit.
In November, U.S. District Court Judge Joe Heaton rejected Hobby Lobby’s petition for an injunction against enforcement of the mandate, citing a lack of legal precedent to establish that secular for-profit companies “have a constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.” An attorney for the company said it would appeal the decision. Three other companies with similar petitions — Hercules Industries of Denver, Colorado; Weizgartz Supply Company of Cedar Springs, Michigan; and Tyndale House Publishers of Carol Stream, Illinois — have won preliminary injunctions to halt enforcement in a controversy that will likely go all the way to the Supreme Court.
While Roman Catholic bishops and various Catholic institutions have been in the forefront of the legal and public-relations battle against the mandate, the Hobby Lobby suit is a reminder that the issue is not exclusively a Catholic controversy. The company’s CEO is one Baptist businessman who is unwilling to have the limits of his Christian faith defined for him by the federal government.
“Our government threatens to fine job creators in a bad economy,” he wrote. “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.”
Read more at - http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/faith-and-morals/item/13930-obama-administrations-war-on-religion
But the faith of Green and his family stands to be penalized, not rewarded, by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandate that requires coverage of contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs, with no deductibles or co-pay, in the health insurance employers provide for their workers. Green, a devout Baptist, says his Christian faith and conscience will not permit him to comply with that mandate, issued in pursuance of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare).
“Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions,” Green wrote. “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.”
Since the penalty for noncompliance is $100 per employee per day, Green, with thousands of employees nationwide, says the cost to him would be an estimated $1.3 million a day, forcing the company in short order to close its doors and go out of business. Like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and an array of religiously affiliated schools, hospitals, and other non-profits, Hobby Lobby in September filed suit in U.S. District Court to overturn the HHS mandate. That, in turn, has inspired a backlash against the company by those who believe employees have a right to have their sex lives subsidized. A “Boycott Hobby Lobby” page soon appeared on Facebook, and the page administrator claimed it was having the desired effect.
“I’ve been to two Hobby Lobby parking lots today and they were fairly empty,” read one posting. “I used to have trouble finding a parking spot! I think the boycott is catching on!” If so, then the Green family is already paying a price for adhering to the principles of their conservative Christian faith.
The penalty will be more severe, even fatal, to the company if and when the fines are levied. “They’re being told they have two choices,” attorney Lori Windham of the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty told Fox News in September, “Either follow their faith and pay the government half a billion dollars or give up their beliefs.” That is “a choice no one should have to make,” said Windham, representing the company in its lawsuit.
In November, U.S. District Court Judge Joe Heaton rejected Hobby Lobby’s petition for an injunction against enforcement of the mandate, citing a lack of legal precedent to establish that secular for-profit companies “have a constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.” An attorney for the company said it would appeal the decision. Three other companies with similar petitions — Hercules Industries of Denver, Colorado; Weizgartz Supply Company of Cedar Springs, Michigan; and Tyndale House Publishers of Carol Stream, Illinois — have won preliminary injunctions to halt enforcement in a controversy that will likely go all the way to the Supreme Court.
While Roman Catholic bishops and various Catholic institutions have been in the forefront of the legal and public-relations battle against the mandate, the Hobby Lobby suit is a reminder that the issue is not exclusively a Catholic controversy. The company’s CEO is one Baptist businessman who is unwilling to have the limits of his Christian faith defined for him by the federal government.
“Our government threatens to fine job creators in a bad economy,” he wrote. “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.”
Read more at - http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/faith-and-morals/item/13930-obama-administrations-war-on-religion
