1. Peter K. Wright | www.peterkwright.com | peterkwright2@gmail.com
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Crossing Obamacare
Oklahoma Gazette
April 30, 2013
By: Peter Wright
For supporters of Hobby Lobby, the
fluorescent bulbs that light store aisles have
perhaps become a beacon of righteousness.
The Oklahoma City-based chain stepped
into the political fray late last year with a
controversial lawsuit against the Affordable
Care Act (ACA), a case that has garnered
praise from some of the most prominent
evangelical figures in the country.
The Christian faith of Hobby Lobby’s sole
owners, the Green family, is as ubiquitous
as the Christian pop songs on the chain’s
satellite radio station. All stores close on
Sundays, and full-page newspaper ads
quoting scripture have become a tradition
on Christian holidays. Mardel, a smaller
chain under the same ownership, specializes
in Christian merchandise.
“We’re stewards of a business that is not
ours. We believe that it is God’s,” said Steve
Green, president of Hobby Lobby, in an
April 15 speech upon accepting an award
from the National Bible Association.
The ACA, otherwise known as Obamacare,
mandates that companies with more than
50 employees must provide insurance with
full coverage for emergency contraception
or face tax penalties as a consequence.
Hobby Lobby contends the requirement
violates religious freedom since the
corporate ownership believes that morning-
after and week-after pills cause abortions.
In September, Hobby Lobby filed a federal
suit and began seeking an injunction against
the penalty, which the company estimated
would be $1.3 million a day. No injunction
has been granted. While Hobby Lobby
initially indicated it would pay the fines, its
attorneys later found a way to delay the
deadline for the requirement.
“These abortion-causing drugs go against
our faith, and our family is now being forced
to choose between following the laws of the
land the we love or maintaining the
religious beliefs that have made our
business successful,” David Green, founder
and CEO, said in a written statement
announcing the suit.
The Green family declined to be interviewed
for this story.
Corporate sentinel
Hobby Lobby’s stance has generated its
share of criticism. Several high-profile
medical groups dispute the claim that
emergency contraceptives can cause
abortions. The American Civil Liberties
Union filed a brief along with 10 religious
organizations challenging the case on legal
grounds, and a Christian activist group
gathered thousands of signatures on a
petition condemning the company.
At the same time, however, Hobby Lobby’s
legal crusade has become a rallying point for
religious leaders found everywhere from
Fox News to Facebook.
Joseph Grabowski, a Philadelphia resident,
decided to show his support for Hobby
Lobby by creating a Facebook event for
“Hobby Lobby Appreciation Day,” which he
styled after a similar initiative that former
presidential candidate Mike Huckabee had

2. Peter K. Wright | www.peterkwright.com | peterkwright2@gmail.com
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taken for Chick-fil-A. By the end of the
unofficial holiday in January, Hobby
Lobby’s designated day had about 66,000
people “attending” with 100,000 invited.
“This remained, from the beginning to the
present, a grassroots initiative,” said
Grabowski, who is Roman Catholic.
Much of the support for it arrived after an
endorsement from Huckabee himself.
Grabowski had sent the ex-Arkansas
governor a Facebook message promoting
the event. Before Grabowski heard anything
back, Huckabee had posted a public
statement of support.
“The Obama administration insists that
companies like Hobby Lobby bow their
knees to the God of government health care
mandates,” Huckabee wrote, “even when
those mandates are a clear and direct
contradiction to their personal beliefs of
faith.”
Hobby Lobby is being legally represented by
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a
Washington D.C. nonprofit. Its lawyers
declined an interview, but the organization’s
website lists seven active lawsuits they have
against the contraceptive mandate.
It was through their public relations office
that prominent evangelical pastor Rick
Warren released a statement on behalf of
Hobby Lobby.
“This case is nothing less than a landmark
battle for America’s first freedom, the
freedom of religion and the freedom from
government intervention in matters of
conscience,” Warren said. “I predict that the
battle to preserve religious liberty for all, in
all areas of life, will likely become the civil
rights movement of this decade.”
The fight for religious liberty was also a key
part of a supporting brief filed by the
Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.
“The very last thing we would want to
propose is to impose what we believe to be
truth on someone else,” Archdiocese
spokeswoman Tina Dzurisin said.
Pulpit politics
The suit has entered political rotation, with
Hobby Lobby and The Becket Fund
promoting — if not having sought out —
support from state and national politicians.
U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, joined Senate
Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of
Kentucky and seven other senators to
endorse an amicus brief claiming the
Religious Freedom and Restoration Act of
1993 should apply to Hobby Lobby, even
though initial statements from the courts
deemed it only applicable to “individuals” in
the human sense of the word.
“This judicially created carve-out is directly
contrary to one of the primary reasons
Congress enacted RFRA in the first place: to
prevent … picking and choosing whose
exercise of religion is protected and whose is
not,” the brief reads.
U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton disagreed. In
denying a preliminary injunction for Hobby
Lobby, he said there is enough legal
precedent to cast doubt on the success of the
Greens’ arguments. Because the corporation
is the most directly affected party in the
lawsuit, it would need to have the same
rights as people.
“Corporations have constitutional rights in
some circumstances, such as the right to
free speech, but the rights of corporate
persons and natural persons are not
coextensive,” Heaton said.
State Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a
staunch foe of Obamacare, takes issue with
that reasoning. He said Hobby Lobby is a
“closely held” company, and that courts
should recognize that.

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“We believe a corporation can possess
sincere religious beliefs,” he told Oklahoma
Gazette. “This is, in my estimation, religious
persecution.”
He also filed a brief claiming the court had
erred in distinguishing between “nonprofit
religious organizations” and “for-profit
secular businesses.” Pruitt’s larger goal was
to make the case for expanding corporate
rights to include religion.
“It sounds like the government, to me, is
saying you have free exercise as long as you
don’t conflict with the government, and
that’s wrong,” he said.
A chosen path
For years, Hobby Lobby stuck to less
contentious ways of demonstrating its
religious faith. It donated to religious
schools and camps. The Green family
purchased a large collection of Bible
antiquities and currently is in the process of
building a museum for it in Washington,
D.C.
The company’s philanthropy — along with
how it treats retail employees and
customers — prompted the National Bible
Association in April to present Steve Green
with an award for religion in business.
“He and his family are living their lives the
way they believe, and that is godly,” said
Richard Glickstein, the association’s
president.
As for what factors might have led Hobby
Lobby to stake out a controversial position
in court, one observer suggests it might have
to do with a specific business mindset.
In general terms, there was a fundamental
shift to service-sector jobs shortly before
Hobby Lobby was founded in 1972,
according to Bethany Moreton, author of
the book To Serve God and Walmart: The
Making of Christian Free Enterprise. With
more person-to-person interaction, lines
separating the workplace from private life
began to blur.
“You have a different kind of commitment
when you understand your work to be for
and about other people, rather than for an
assembly line,” said Moreton, who teaches
history at the University of Georgia.
In the American Bible Belt, newly
empowered workers changed the shape of
business from the bottom up as revived
evangelicalism took hold and mega-retail
chains — such as Hobby Lobby and
Walmart — began their ascent.
What happens next is clear only through
May 23, when the entire U.S. 10th Circuit
Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments
on Hobby Lobby’s request for an injunction.
So far, court decisions have taken issue with
some of the company’s key legal arguments,
said University of Oklahoma law professor
Joseph Thai.
“That’s the writing that’s coming out of the
district court and that the 10th Circuit is, at
least preliminarily, sending,” he said. “But
you can never tell until the ink is dry.”
This type of case can bounce between courts
for years, Thai added. At a certain point, it
becomes a matter of finances for the
plaintiff. But Hobby Lobby’s end goal seems
to be clear: a hearing before the United
States Supreme Court.