Better and wiser writers than I have already posted excellent, documented pieces on the Supreme Court's decision to take up Hobby Lobby's challenge to the ACA-mandated contraception coverage in March of 2014.
This morning, Meteor Blades posted a diary in which he linked to Joan McCarter's and Adam B's fine essays. Their writing inspired me to look more closely into what kind of corporation Hobby Lobby really is, and what I found on its Web site left me with more questions than answers about the company's alleged focus on Christianity. Please follow below and consider some rather selective applications of religious principles when it comes to the company's "bottom line."
Before moving forward, it's worth establishing that Hobby Lobby's religiosity both in the case of its legal claims and its business practices are ALL about money. About principle, probably not so much. Adam B's diary indicated as much based on quotes from the Hobby Lobby 10th Circuit decision:
The most immediate consequence for Hobby Lobby and Mardel would come in the form of regulatory taxes: $100 per day for each "individual to whom such failure relates." 26 U.S.C. § 4980D(b)(1). The plaintiffs assert that because more than 13,000 individuals are insured under the Hobby Lobby plan (which includes Mardel), this fine would total at least $1.3 million per day, or almost $475 million per year. This assumes that "individual" means each individual insured under Hobby Lobby's plan. If the corporations instead drop employee health insurance altogether, they will face penalties of $26 million per year.
Mardel is the Christian "education" wing of the empire, through which one can purchase Duck Dynasty paraphernalia, bibles of all sorts, jewelry, games, and lots of home schooling DVDs. The other wing is
Hemispheres, a home furnishing outlet through which social-climbing or bourgeois-wannabe Christians can buy
faux "elegance" and sophistication via cheesy, veneer-topped, pressed wood dining sets, "classic"-looking, puffy, genuine naugahyde lounge chairs and sofas, interior lighted china cabinets (to display Christian-themed bric-a-brac, one would imagine), that kind of thing. (Interestingly, Mandel is the only subsidiary that actually offers Christian-themed items in the form of Christmas "home decor" collectibles, such as nativity scenes with statues of white people, children's books with almost exclusively white children, and smarmy stories of mostly white families' saving Christmas from the humbug.
Still, what caught my attention was Hobby Lobby's home page, its "mission statement," as it were, and what products it offers in connection with that mission. Here is the company's mission statement:
At Hobby Lobby, we value our customers and employees and are committed to:
• Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with biblical principles.
• Offering our customers exceptional selection and value in the crafts and home decor market.
• Serving our employees and their families by establishing a work environment and company policies that build character, strengthen individuals and nurture families.
• Providing a return on the owner's investment, sharing the Lord's blessings with our employees, and investing in our community.
We believe that it is by God's grace and provision that Hobby Lobby has endured. He has been faithful in the past, and we trust Him for our future.
Hobby Lobby is THE place to shop with everyday Super Selections and Super Savings! Store hours are Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and all Hobby Lobby stores are closed on Sunday.
Well, that sounds just "Super," except that once you proceed to shop online, not only are Christian-themed products non-existent, pagan-themed or -influenced products abound. So it would appear that religious morality is a convenient tool to save money as one's company avoids abiding by a federal health insurance mandate, and a tool easily discarded while hawking pagan traditions and symbols and pushing them off as purely "Christian." And why not? The money is all green.
Hobby Lobby's Halloween-themed home decorations. No "saints" here, but plenty of witches to celebrate.
No saints here, either, but ghost and dancing skeletons to remind us of resurrection.
Lest we forget,
"according to many scholars, All Hallows' Eve is a Christianized feast initially influenced by Celtic harvest festivals,[8][9] with possible pagan roots, particularly the Gaelic Samhain." I would add that the evidence is pretty overwhelming.
No Jesus in this Easter display, just pagan-inspired references to spring festival origins, Easter Bunnies, sweets, and eggs.
In an entertaining piece in
The Guardian back in 2010, Heather McDougall notes the following:
All the fun things about Easter are pagan. Bunnies are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre, a great northern goddess whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. Exchange of eggs is an ancient custom, celebrated by many cultures. Hot cross buns are very ancient too. In the Old Testament we see the Israelites baking sweet buns for an idol, and religious leaders trying to put a stop to it. The early church clergy also tried to put a stop to sacred cakes being baked at Easter. In the end, in the face of defiant cake-baking pagan women, they gave up and blessed the cake instead.
Easter is essentially a pagan festival which is celebrated with cards, gifts and novelty Easter products, because it's fun and the ancient symbolism still works. It's always struck me that the power of nature and the longer days are often most felt in modern towns and cities, where we set off to work without putting on our car headlights and when our alarm clock goes off in the mornings, the streetlights outside are not still on because of the darkness.
What better way to celebrate, than to bite the head off the bunny goddess, go to a "sunrise service", get yourself a sticky-footed fluffy chick and stick it on your TV, whilst helping yourself to a hefty slice of pagan simnel cake? Happy Easter everyone!
And then there is Christmas...
Ah Christmas, the birthday of Jesus, come Santa, and stockings, and presents, and the marketplace.
According to Stephanie Pappas,
Pagan, or non-Christian, traditions show up in this beloved winter holiday, a consequence of early church leaders melding Jesus' nativity celebration with pre-existing midwinter festivals. Since then, Christmas traditions have warped over time, arriving at their current state a little more than a century ago.
The Christmas tree is a 17th-century German invention, University of Bristol's [Ronald] Hutton told LiveScience, but it clearly derives from the pagan practice of bringing greenery indoors to decorate in midwinter. The modern Santa Claus is a direct descendent of England's Father Christmas, who was not originally a gift-giver. However, Father Christmas and his other European variations are modern incarnations of old pagan ideas about spirits who traveled the sky in midwinter, Hutton said.
So, yes, let's don the cloak of religiosity when it suits our purpose (building a profitable empire) and get the state to sanction our greed and (apparent) hypocrisy. It's all in good fun, after all, and principles are flexible, as long as business is good. Pass the collection plate, please.