Truth and Meaning: Hypocrisy and Hobby Lobby

Recently, the Supreme Court heard the case of a privately-owned corporation wishing to impose the religious views of its owners on its employees. On its surface, this case is about contraception and whether one believes in the morality of birth control. At the next level of understanding is the debate over whether “religious freedom” guarantees one the right to practice one’s religion when doing so imposes one’s own religious beliefs on others.

But, this case is not really about either of these important debates. The Hobby Lobby vs. Sebelius case is about hypocrisy — the hypocrisy running all too rampant in our society today.

The Green family sells products for a living. They pay employees a compensation package to work in their stores and sell their products. And the Greens want to control how those employees spend the money they earn because of the Greens’ so-called Christian values. But let’s examine how the Greens act upon their religious values.

• Hobby Lobby imports billions of dollars of products from China, a nation that doesn't allow its people to have the freedom to worship freely, where workers are routinely exposed to dangerous situations for low pay, and where persecution of Chinese Christians is increasing. And although the one-child policy was technically lifted, abandonment and selective killing of female babies continues. Forced abortion is still a regular practice in China. See http://www.usnews.com/opinion/leslie-marshall/2014/03/26/hobby-lobbys-china-hypocrisy
• Documents filed with the Department of Labor three months after the Greens filed their lawsuit show that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices and drugs commonly used in abortions. Hobby Lobby makes large matching contributions to this company-sponsored 401(k), even though there exist several boutique mutual funds that specifically screen companies that are not in line with their client's religious beliefs. See http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/hobby-lobby-retirement-plan-invested-emergency-contraception-and-abortion-drug-makers
• The main drugs in question in the case brought before the Supreme Court are the emergency contraceptives Plan-B and Ella.One huge problem with this situation is that up until 2012, Hobby Lobby provided them as part of their insurance plan. Only when they realized that Obamacare was going to mandate this coverage did they suddenly become interested in not providing these drugs. See  http://www.reddirtreport.com/prairie-opinions/hobby-lobby-provided-emergency-contraceptives-they-opposed-them#sthash.uukZXFjI.dpuf
• Hobby Lobby's CFO Jon Cargill, and an affiliate company, Crafts Etc., are the two single biggest donors to the National Christian Foundation, an organization that backed groups advocating in favor of Arizona's anti-gay bill — the Center for Arizona Policy and the Alliance Defending Freedom. This action displays not just a desire to engage in a religious practice, but a concerted effort to reach out and support overly discriminatory laws. See http://www.salon.com/2014/03/27/hobby_lobbys_secret_agenda_how_its_secretly_funding_a_vast_right_wing_movement/

So, in other words, when it increases their profits, the Greens readily set aside their vaunted Christian values in favor of the almighty dollar. The only religious value ultimately important to the Greens is the worship of wealth and the desire to impose their political views on others.