SCOTUS decides for Hobby Lobby

[Ed Anger]

Yeah, they're a bit new to the area here as well;  I checked them out when they first showed up to see if they covered, you know, other hobbies like model rocketry and whatnot.  Imagine my surprise there were no Warhammer minis to be found. 

Just another Michael's, which is already seriously entrenched in the mid-Atlantic.

But you can get scrap booking supplies. You can make a WARHAMMER scrapbook.

[CountDeMoney]

Warhammer doilies.  Yahoo.

[grumbler]

Yeah, they're a bit new to the area here as well;  I checked them out when they first showed up to see if they covered, you know, other hobbies like model rocketry and whatnot.  Imagine my surprise there were no Warhammer minis to be found. 

Just another Michael's, which is already seriously entrenched in the mid-Atlantic.

But you can get scrap booking supplies. You can make a WARHAMMER scrapbook.

  Well played!

[merithyn]

Little aside here--who had heard of Hobby Lobby prior to this case? Apparently there is one less than 5 miles from my house, in a major shopping center I frequent all the time. When I first read about this case maybe 6 months ago, I remember thinking Hobby Lobby must be some plains state store we don't have here as I had never heard of it in my life (and I read the owners are from Oklahoma or something), imagine my surprise when I was going to Target and noticed an HL in the same shopping center.

Now, I'm not totally ignorant of the existence of crafts stores, I've noticed Michaels stores for years, but HL kind of snuck up on me. I'd never so much as heard of it until six months ago and apparently they've had a store here for years.

They look an awful lot like Home Depot from the outside, so I'd guess most people just assume that's what it is.

[OttoVonBismarck]

In general this description is correct, but the health insurers don't generally have a regional focus. As far as I know most operate in the entire country. Most are loosely based on former sectors of industry, but membership is no longer limited to those working in certain industries.
The rates and even the scope of services is negotiated between a representative body of the health insurers, and those of doctors and hospitals. Germany organizes a lot of things like that with big federal entities that are controlled by the actual stakeholders, not the state, but get a certain legal status through statuary law to guarantee their ability to negotiate efficiently. That removes the direct political influence, but still makes sure that several parties have similar negotiating powers. These entities will typically not be allowed to be active outside their limited scope, i.e. they may not comment on general political questions.

Ah, that sectors of industry thing makes sense given how German business works. I'm still pretty impressed I mostly got it right from memory  .

[merithyn]

Even Christians are pissed at Hobby Lobby.

And the last line kills me. I read it as: the vendors they work with don't have as much clout as Hobby Lobby does because they can't control their government the way HL can theirs.

The arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby proudly touts itself as a Christian company that puts people over profits. However, some staunch Christians say there's a gaping hole in that claim -- namely, China.

Products bearing "Made in China" labels are found all over the shelves at Hobby Lobby, evidence that some of its wares come from Chinese factories that have a reputation for labor rights violations and rock-bottom wages. Employees at these facilities often end up working grueling hours in prison-like conditions and never earn enough to escape poverty.

"You cannot call your business 'Christian' when arguing before the Supreme Court, and then set aside Christian values when you're placing a bulk order for cheap wind chimes," wrote Christian author and columnist Jonathan Merritt in a recent article for The Week.

Hobby Lobby remains quiet about its dealings in China. The company did not respond to requests for a list of Chinese factories it does business with, and did not provide information about what percentage of its merchandise comes from China.

Then there's China's controversial record on abortion. The country's one-child policy was slightly relaxed in 2013, but the family planning bureaucracy still exists. Since the government instituted the policy 40 years ago, there have been more than 330 million abortions in China, according to health ministry data cited by the Financial Times. Though fewer instances of forced abortion, infanticide and involuntary sterilization now occur because they're banned by the government, they still happen, The Washington Post reported last year.

This week, Hobby Lobby's crusade against contraceptives scored it a victory in the U.S. Supreme Court. On Monday, the court ruled 5-4 that so-called "closely held corporations" don't have to provide certain kinds of contraception for employees.

"Being Christians, we don't pay for drugs that might cause abortions, which means that we don't cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill," Hobby Lobby founder and CEO David Green wrote in an open letter in 2013. "We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs."

Yet the company is happy to profit from the business it does with China, critics argue, even though political conditions in that country have led to hundreds of millions of abortions.

Leslie Marshall, a radio host and self-described born-again Christian, questioned Hobby Lobby's policies in a column for U.S. News & World Report in March, invoking the teachings of the "guy who started all of this."

"As they say: What would Jesus do?" wrote Marshall. "He would remind Hobby Lobby that 'he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.' Hobby Lobby should put its stones down."

In a 2013 blog post, Matt Chambers, the director of a non-governmental organization called SafeWorld, similarly wrote that he disapproved of Hobby Lobby's relationship with China for religious reasons.

"You see, when it comes carrying high the banner of 'Biblical principles', I believe a company who wanted that to be their public persona would be extra careful to NEVER do business with the very people who go against everything they claim to fight for as Christians," Chambers wrote, according to The Christian Post.

Other Christian columnists, including The Christian Post's Josh Stonestreet, have come out in defense of Hobby Lobby, saying that working with Chinese manufacturers is different from working with the Chinese government.

"Doing business in a place where evil exists is not the same as directly supporting that evil," wrote Stonestreet. "In fact, it may even be a force for good!"

Hobby Lobby has remained largely silent on the issue, but in a column in the Rutland (Vermont) Herald in March, Peter Dobelbower, the company's vice president and chief legal officer, provided some insight into Hobby Lobby's rationale for buying products made abroad: Those factories can't control what their governments do, so it's OK.

"Our company sources from suppliers around the world," Dobelbower wrote in response to an earlier op-ed, calling for a boycott, that had appeared in the same paper. "Virtually all Hobby Lobby's vendors are small entrepreneurial businesses without control over their government's abortion policies."

[derspiess]

Little aside here--who had heard of Hobby Lobby prior to this case?

Here in Cincy I think they have more locations than Michaels.  They're a pretty good source for stuff for kid's parties.

And now like Chick-fil-A, I get to make a political statement by shopping there! 

[garbon]

Even Christians are pissed at Hobby Lobby.

This article is kind of silly. Oh my, there are some Christians that don't like a company that calls itself Christian?

[Ed Anger]

Little aside here--who had heard of Hobby Lobby prior to this case?

Here in Cincy I think they have more locations than Michaels.  They're a pretty good source for stuff for kid's parties.

And now like Chick-fil-A, I get to make a political statement by shopping there! 

I think I need some more stone frogs. No whore pills frogs.

[derspiess]

This article is kind of silly. Oh my, there are some Christians that don't like a company that calls itself Christian?

Yeah-- "Christians" are a large, fairly diverse, group of people.  Good chance you're going to find some that don't like something.

[derspiess]

I think I need some more stone frogs. No whore pills frogs.

LOL IUD FROGS

That is, frogs crafted from IUDs cruelly denied to Hobby Lobby employees 

[Berkut]

I am always a bit amazed at how for so many people their core beliefs are pretty much motivated by a bizarre combination of spite and misogyny.

Then I am amazed at myself for continuing to be amazed.

[Ed Anger]

I think I need some more stone frogs. No whore pills frogs.

LOL IUD FROGS

That is, frogs crafted from IUDs cruelly denied to Hobby Lobby employees 

Toxic Shock frogs.

[garbon]

I am always a bit amazed at how for so many people their core beliefs are pretty much motivated by a bizarre combination of spite and misogyny.

Then I am amazed at myself for continuing to be amazed.

I don't know, I mean I would think that many of the people who support things don't run around actively disliking women, they are just indifferent to the effects such policies have on them.  Is indifference a sign of misogyny?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I am always a bit amazed at how for so many people their core beliefs are pretty much motivated by a bizarre combination of spite and misogyny.

Then I am amazed at myself for continuing to be amazed.

None of that surprises me at all. But what has always surprised me is some number of people actually care about the political activities or beliefs of the ownership of places they shop. If I'm going through a fast food place or a convenience store or a hardware store I care about what I'm getting for my dollar and don't really give a fuck what goes on in that company otherwise. Not my business or concern if they have slaves working in the back or the owner eats babies for  breakfast.