MASON CITY – A local retailer in Mason City continues to be a part of a national controversy involving Obamacare and whether the Federal government has the authority under the constitution to force a business to participate in a program that the business owners claim violates their religious principles.
Today is “Standing with Hobby Lobby Day” and it is being observed across the country.
According to a Facebook page dedicated to the event, “On Saturday, January 5th, all Americans who value freedom of religion and oppose the HHS Mandate’s unfair impositions upon religious individuals and corporate entities are called upon to show their support for Hobby Lobby by shopping either at their local retail Hobby Lobby store or online.”
The Mason City Hobby Lobby store is located at 2566 4th Street Southwest.
According to Store Manager Lance Nath, he has received on-going updates on the status of a lawsuit filed by Hobby Lobby founder and CEO David Green, and is well aware of today’s event.
“We are already busy,” said Mr. Nath. “Whether we do 10% more or 15% more today, I don’t know. I think (the event) will be a good thing.”
According to Mr. Green, Obamacare will have negative affect on his business and violate his religious principles.
“A new government health care mandate says that our family business MUST provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance,” Mr. Green recently stated. “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. 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. If we refuse to comply, we could face $1.3 million PER DAY in government fines.”
According to news reports, A federal judge dismissed on Friday a lawsuit the University of Notre Dame had filed against the HHS mandate compelling religious groups and businesses to pay for drugs for their employees that may cause abortions.
My favorite thing about the ACA, or obamacare as our media has labelled it, is that it’s almost the exact same plan the republicans were putting forth during the Clinton administration. Now though, because it was passed into law while a democrat, who happens to be half black, holds the office of the President, the right wing hate mongers want to try and portray it as the most evil thing since Nazi Germany. Hypocrits much? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news for the conservatives, but the days of old white men ruling the roost is over. Support for your party among the youth and minorities of our great nation is next to nill, with the only ones buying into your propaganda being the uneducated, bigoted and hateful. Thank God they aren’t the majority.
It is the exact same plan that Hillary tried to get through during the Clinton administration you mean.
I’m sorry, but why does hobby lobby think that they are above the law. The Affordable Health Care Act has already passed the scrutiny of the Supreme Court, so live with it. It is not a perfect law, none of them are, but it is a first step in trying to control health care costs. If hobby lobby is so stupid as to cut their nose off to spite their face by shutting their doors, let them. I’m sure not going to darken their doorstep again.
Having the word affordable in that health care act is the first joke!
Do you have information to back up that statement, Katie? Because the healthcare bill actually saves us money.
@stupid, read this
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/taxes-obama-healthcare-payroll/2013/01/06/id/470241
My personal health insurance went up $200/month. Our employee’s health insurance went up 38%. Tell me about how it saves me money.
stupid believes everything his/her god (obama) tells them so we must be wrong
This is what people get for putting a not american back in the White House to run our American country. All he has done since he got in there is stir up trouble and has our country fighting against each other, and his wife wanting to starve our children. Just wait until this next term is over we will be behind fences looking out at musselums running our country, and our food being rashined to us if they feel we are worth let liiving. What are people going to do that can’t afford insurance ? I work hard to have it and pay for it know but will I ever be able to retire ?
musselums? MUSSELUMS?
I’d explain it to you but appears you’d never comprehend it. I’ll tell you this much…..if you can’t afford it you get a pass. Have you tried reading the details of it. Skip the next teaparte’ and read the Act instead.
$13/hr. to start?! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! Yeah riiiiight. I know someone who works at HL. Been there a long time. I’ll ask them. If they started at $13 this person should be making at least $20/hr. by now. Betting they don’t.
Blogers here are right civil war is on the way and this time the good guys will win I think. Time to clean house, get rid of scum yes.
I’m not scared. Good always wins over evil. Brain wins over brawn etc. That’s why Obama won again. See how that works.
Well, one more store I will refuse to shop in now. Get a grip and get with the real world!!
I don’t shop Target since they were the largest contributor to Michelle Bachamans campaign. I don’t shop Staples since Mitt Romney and Bain Corporate Holdings own the majority of the company.
I am a very devout Christian– but– this stuff drives me crazy!!!
What I can’t figure out is how someone can call themself a christian and a democrat at the same time.
Hobby Lobby takes part in the extortion of Chinese workers….low wages, long hours and all for bigger profit. How Christian is that?
WTH?
proove it.
It’s a BUSINESS. NOT a CHURCH. Business regulations and church rules are 2 different things. But “overbearing shove it down people’s throats BIBLE THUMPING HYPOCRITS” can’t get that through they’re boneheads.
I favor what America stands for. FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND FREEDOM FROM RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION.
Above is a display of more ignorance and out right stupidity than I’ve ever seen anywhere!
I do not know about you. But my healthcare cost have just gone up this year and not just a little. How is that saving us on healthcare. And was that not the purpose of the health care law anyway? And giving everyone healthcare that they must pay for. (not affordable healthcare) The cost are not going down. Check the records. So what have we gained? Let the government keep taking control of your life and your freedom will be lost. How far will we go at letting the Government control our lives. And what we must buy even if we do not want it. Now do we have the right to choose?
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/taxes-obama-healthcare-payroll/2013/01/06/id/470241
Civil War is on the horizon.
Too many folks are sure quick to turn their freedom over to our corrupt government.
Amazing, unbelievable, and a real head shaker. I have heard is said that stupidity is fatal. Ok to kill babies, ok to make tax slaves out of the Po’folk, ok to stand by and let the Feds dictate every aspect of your lives and you people sit here and cheer it on.
What are you smoking or snorting? Are you really this stupid? And you are cheering on the Federal Government to take more and more of your freedom.
This is mind boggling!
Amen,
It is no wonder people are out buying up guns by the thousands daily!
@Anonymous-WOW, but maybe you are right. I certainly do agree with some of your statements. I call them Lemmings.
“Civil War is on the horizon.”
Really? All I see is an overload of testosterone.
You’re just champing at the bit for an uprising, aren’t you, you and all the other “cave man” types who thrive on the anticipation of “legal” blood letting?
If you’re really that excited about the prospects for another civil war, do us all a favor and join the military. That is, if you’re brave enough. I’ll bet facing REAL enemies with REAL weapons would change your mind in a hurry.
My question is does Hobby Lobby already offer affordable healthcare to their employee’s or are they just hiding behind a chump card not to offer health care to them?
It has been my understanding that they just do not want to offer coverage of any service that will result in abortion.
in america everyone has the right to choose and follow their own religion. hobby lobby is pressing a part of their religion on their employees. but there should be no bashing people who are pro-life pro-choice or pro-abortion. everyone has the right to believe what they want without anyone taking that away.
Sorry you are incorrect, Hobby Lobby is not “pushing” its religious beliefs on its employees. Each employee can still obtain legal abortion drugs/procedures. However the Govnt. is preventing HL from the free practice of its religious beliefs.
yes, because its religious beliefs would affect those of its employees
“OK
January 6, 2013 at 10:25 am
yes, because its religious beliefs would affect those of its employees”
Sorry you are incorrect. Each employee will still be able to obtain a abortificant/procedure if they so desire. The only thing that will change is who pays for it.
@ sickastupd – I notice you are long on insulting and denigrating people, but awful short on giving reasons why you feel as you do. I have tried to offer arguements & answers, reasons for why I feel as I do. All I hear from you is rhetoric. You haven’t mentioned resposibility or accountability. You haven’t mentioned that adult choices would prevent the need for this to even happen. The only basis for your viewpoint is emotion. And I wonder what excuses you use in your life to justify what you do, as you (from your dialogue) are either unwilling or unable to accept responsibility for the things you do. The last is just an observation from what you write. Suggestion, try to read objectively, not subjectively.
Although you are unable to comprehend, my points are valid. There would be no debate if this weren’t a female issue. That’s not emotion, that’s fact. Your prejudice and bigotry are so overwhelming that you refuse to allow yourself to see it, and your unabashed ignorance overshadows any shred of validity you may have.
Healthcare has nothing to do with responsibility or accountability in this country, or we would deny coverage to smokers. NOW do you get it?
back when I worked at a casino we were asked by insurance companies if we smoked and those that said yes had higher premiums and some even a different policy.
So why aren’t men offered abortion coverage? If they have sex with a woman who isn’t covered, they should be able to have coverage for morning after pills, week after pills, and abortions, AND PREGNANCIES for their partners who can prove they aren’t covered. That would be equal rights. They are just as responsible for a pregnancy as the woman. See how businesses would react to THAT!
I stand with Hobby Lobby on this one. This president has trashed our constitution. God save America.
I’ll buy in to ObamaCare’s contraception rule if it will include a third generation law for food stampers/title 19’ers to be sterilized. What about my rights as a law abiding, hard working tax payer?
That has to be the most common sense things I have heard in a LONG time!!!! Getting tired of paying for deadbeats. Getting tired of taking random drug tests to prove I wasn’t breaking the law(to KEEP MY JOB!!)Getting tired of people with the free obamaphones. I have to pay for my phone…….Just getting tired…………..People who work for a living are getting tired…it’s gonna get ugly
You obviously don’t know the difference between apples & oranges. Obamacare’s bc rule is TOTALY different than welfare recipents bc that they have been getting FREE on your tax dime for over 40 yrs. Where was your “tired of it attitude” then? All of a sudden we got a black prez. and you tighty whities are screaming about welfare. Just to remind you and inform you… people who would get free bc with Obamacare would be WORKING TAX PAYING INSURANCE PAYING citizens. K? Get your facts straight before you play the “welfare card”. MARRIED couples woulkd utilize the free bc too. Would that be ok with the dirty minded phoney self rightous religous goofballs like HL? They’ll probably take away hrs. from employees to get out of paying. Mark my words.
People who back this requirement are the same ones who back welfare, extended unemployment, food stamps, and any other kind of handout the govt requires. Limited usage of these handouts is not evil. There are times people need help. But there comes a time when the handout must end. And this is when the handout becomes a want rather than a need. And the anti-abortion pill program is just such a time. People should be responsibile for their own actions. And when a woman allows herself to have unprotected sex she should be responsible for the consequences. This is not a matter of rights, or law. It’s about people acting in an adult and responsible fashion, and being accountable for their own actions.
What are you talking about? What hand out??? This is about Hobby Lobby offering health insurance that covers birth control to their employees – that the employee PAYS FOR!
It’s not about abortion, handouts, welfare or any of the other asinine right wing uninformed baloney. It’s about a hypocritical company trying to worm out of offering health insurance on a phoney “belief” platform.
Learn something.
Think logically for just one moment, please. Is this a situation that could have been prevented? Yes or no. The answer is yes, if the woman would have used protection. So what we are doing is enabling promiscous women who decide to play around with sex to duck their responsibility. And with all the STD’s out nowdays, I find it difficult to believe a decent, intelligent woman would be so sexually starved to put common sense aside and engage in casual, unprotected sex. And notice I am not condemning sex. Just the kind of women who engage in it in a thoughtless and casual way and then expect society to pay for their indescretion.
I would like to express how repulsive your ignorance is, but I would probably be banned. So let’s suffice it to say that I am thrilled that there are enough intelligent people in this country to counteract morons like you.
Hey stupid, if you believed with all your heart that something was wrong, maybe even a sin and the government told you that you had to do it anyway, what would you do? This is the give me generation, you give me this because I need it. The employees don’t pay for the insurance, maybe the co-pay but thats it.
maybe…there you go again with the name calling. Still makes you look very foolish. Let’s see if you are smart enough to make a point without resorting to childish talk.
@Happyguy, you calling Steve King a loser and a Moron is not name calling? Yet you accuse someone else of “name calling?” Look who is calling the kettle black. Get some standards and stick with them Happyguy or keep your mouth shut.
Hey happyguy, you are so quick to judge anybody, look at his name, it says stupid.
Johnny boy I have standards. King is a moron. That is what he is. I can’t help that, you can’t help that, and I don’t think he can help it. It isn’t name calling. He is a MORON. That is what he is. Now how do you think you will make me stop posting? As long as there are unintelligent, senseless people posting here, such as you, I will continue to post.
maybe…again I have no idea what so ever that you are talking about. Here you go again!!
@happyguy, I will debate you anytime, let’s make it happen.
This issue has nothing to do with giving anybody anything. Health insurance, if it’s offered to an employee, is a benefit in lieu of higher wages. The employer has NO RIGHT to decree what that insurance does or does not cover. You really want to open that door? You want employers to start denying liver transplant coverage because they don’t like drinking? You want them to refuse to cover heart disease if the employee was overweight or had a family history?
If this were a male issue you can damn sure bet we wouldn’t even be discussing it.
Another frustrated female blaming the male gender for everything that has happened since Eve took the bite out of the apple. There are no arguements that can penetrate pathological fear, anger, frustration, and general feelings of inferiority that some people have. They are incapable of objectivity, since their demons control the total thought process. And these people have built their lives on these feelings. They can’t change. Like the legs of a chair, remove a leg, the chair falls down. Remove any of these feelings, and these women couldn’t survive. These feelings of hate justify who they are. These feelings are their lives.
The people will stand with Obamacrap.
Afterall, the majority of you voted to re-elect the guy. May God have mercy on all of us.
Those that voted for him get what they deserve, only thing is now they have doomed us too. Obamacare is an abomination.
God is a lie. God does not exist. Give up your imaginary friends and get real
Good luck with that one, the day will come when you will admit your mistake, I hope it just isn’t too late.
You will regret the day you meet god and he sends you south.
Exactly how far south is that? Where exactly is hell? Oh, you don’t know because it DOESN’T EXIST.
Unfortuneatly for you hell does exist and at the rate you are going you will find out the hard way. Just remember to pack sunscreen of SPF 1,000,000 and maybe it wont be quite as painful.
Does Hobby Lobbt share their religious beliefs during the hiring process? I think employees should be notified of the anti-choice position of the company.
And to answer the question, I will not stand with Hobby Lobby. As a male, I will never know the difficult decision women face when ending a pregnancy. As a father of three girls, and a friend to many women, I am glad that women have options.
I hope your daughters and women friends appreciate having a man like you in their lives. They’re very fortunate!
Your daughters should be glad that your wife didn’t choose to kill them before they were born.
What a stupid ignorant thing to say.
Hobby Lobby IS a business, NOT a church and must follow the laws of our country, like any other business. Period. Hobby Lobby pays minumum wage and doesn’t want to pay for ANY benefits.
Hobby Lobby is a private enterprise, not a publicly traded company. With that, the Greens do not have to fulfill what stockholders needs are, because his family has ultimate control. If you don’t want to shop his company so be it. He will run the company as he sees fit. end of story. The mandate is not a religious story. It’s a story of our liberties taken away step by step. If the government can mandate individual coverage to everyone in this country without you or I having a say, it is without a doubt a scary place to go. Whether you agree with the coverage or not, at some point, something that you do care about might come up where you will be mandated to do something that goes against your very moral fiber. Government should NOT be involved in any socialist activities like controlling the medical industry. If you disagree, europe is calling you home. This is the land of the free, …. and self reliant.
Excellent post. One of these days someone might be ordered to put people in a gas chamber. People did it without question in WWII Germany. Our government needs to quit trying to control all of us when our government is totally out of control!
Well government has taken your tax money and given it to people who don’t want to work for many many yrs. Where has your outrage at that been? At least the EMPLOYEES PAYING insurance premiums are WORKING for the cost of the premium. Won’t cost you a dime! The HL WORKER will be paying for his own. Via HOURS of working. grasp the concept yet?
Don’t buy this HL baloney! The Notre Dame argument is certainly a valid position but for this bunch to claim a religious objection is outrageous. How religious can you be when you exploit child labor in third world counties to make obscene profits selling junk. The only thing you will ever find in HL thats is made in the USA are the clerks who work for minimum wage, receive no benefits and sell gaudy garbage.
totally untrue. employees are paid well above national minimum wage. full timers start at $13 and hr. That’s START. no other retail place takes care of their employees like that. What other major retail outlet closes by 8 on weekdays and is always closed on sundays to allow family time and worship if they so choose? stop ranting about stuff you are clueless about. And when obama decides to mandate something against a topic you truly care about, what then? It’s not just a religious issue, it’s a liberty issue for all. Mandating a socialist medical program on U.S. citizens is scary enough. If you really want it, try moving to europe. This is the land of the free.
I believe in separation of church and state in our country. I also believe of freedom from religion in this country. But I also believe that a private employer should not be required to pay for something that is against his beliefs. For instance, should our government be able to require that Jewish schools serve pork one day a week? To me, telling the Greens that they must pay for benefits that induce abortions is the same thing. Employees can take financial responsibility for their own abortions in these cases. I’m sure they are told up front that there will be no abortion benefits, so they should know they need to be extra careful. You do the vice, you pay the price.
In the first place, “Jewish Schools” are tax-exempt entities, so the government cannot tell them anything. Secondly, women’s healthcare is NOT a “vice” any more than Viagra for male erectile dysfunction is a “vice”.
I am sick to death of women’s health issues being seen as “dirty” or “slutty”. It’s a health issue, for crying out loud. Just as mammograms aren’t boob porn, birth control is not “booty porn”.
As a woman you should be ashamed.
I believe in everyone’s freedoms. Our freedom in this country is being eroded constantly. I just don’t believe that everyone else should have to pay for mistakes or bad judgment. I believe it is a mistake to voluntarily have unprotected sex if you don’t want to have a child and expect an employer to pay for abortion coverage if he is anti-abortion. Yes, crap happens such as rape and accidental pregnancies even with protected sex, but these employers are against abortion and they should have the freedom to choose not to cover it. Abortion is a personal choice and so should be abortion coverage in a non-public business.
I do not feel that an employer asking a woman to take financial responsibility for a personal choice that an employer has stated he wants no moral role in enabling is calling a woman’s healthcare slutty or dirty. Little blue pills are for a problem caused by a physiological malfunction. Pregnancy is not a physiological malfunction.
And if you think religious schools are exempt from the government telling them anything, talk to the CPA’s who file their tax-exempt returns annually, their OSHA departments, their ADA departments, their grant writers, their insurance agents, and on and on ad infinitum. They are as regulated as any other business. They just don’t pay taxes.
I have known women who use abortions as their primary method of birth control. I find this very distasteful, even though I am not totally anti-abortion. My meme at the end of my last blog was directed at them.
Do you understand what “Seperation of Church And State” means? It means neither the government or religious organization can make or break a “civil” law based on religion. Meaning HL can’t make up their own rules RE insurance based on religioius beliefs. HL owner doesn’t have to take BC iof he doesn’t want to. But he can’t deny his employees their choice. It’s a law they have to pay.
Government has been telling you what to do for years. (marital laws, traffic laws, corporate laws, health and safety in the workplace laws etc) No business has the right to pick which business laws they want to follow.
In 4 years you will hear “I TOLD YOU SO”
Their “beliefs” sure don’t get in the way of their coverage of viagra and other erection aids, though, do they?
Hypocrites. Misogynists. I’ll never darken their door again.
That makes two of us.
“Their “beliefs” sure don’t get in the way of their coverage of viagra and other erection aids, though, do they?”
Please tell me how paying for a drug that allows males to obtain an erection (and thus engage in intercourse), but not pay for abortifacients “gets in the way” of their beliefs? You do realize that the Catholic Church does not approve of the use of condoms or other pregnacy prevention methods?
“Hypocrites. Misogynists. I’ll never darken their door again.”
So you won’t “darken the door” of Pepsi Co., O’Rielly’s Auto Parts, Ruby Tuesdays?
Abortion isn’t just a political issue; it can also be a religious one. In which case, forcing employers to pay for abortion-causing drugs violates their freedom and practice of religion, a Constitutional right.
If you agree, make your voice heard and exempt companies like Hobby Lobby from the healthcare mandate.
http://j.mp/ULnpUm
No, it doesn’t. This has nothing to do with the practice of their religion. This is a secular issue. If they don’t want to play by the same rules as everybody else, they are free to get out of the free enterprise system.
No, Hobby Lobby doesn’t have to provide health insurance, but they have to obey the law.
The healthcare industry is ripping the public off right and left, yet nobody seems alarmed about that. The new healthcare law is going to give all people the option to be taken care of, and study after study had concluded that it will save the country a great deal of money in the long run.
Nick, Hobby Lobby is a corporation, it is no longer a family run business. With that being said it means that the corporation is governed by the rules of the city, state, and federal government just like any other corporation. Why there is freedom to practice your religion there is also in the 1st amendment of separation of Church and State, and since Hobby Lobby’s owners made the decision to incorporate, and are not a religious institution, they need to abide by the same rules as any other corporation.
Being incorporated does not mean it is not a family or private business. If it sells stock on the stock market, THEN it is a public corporation. Incorporation has nothing to do with whether it is public or private. It is simply a form of ownership, mostly for taxation and liability purposes. Hobby Lobby or any other corporation could be owned exclusively by ONE person, if it wanted to be, and still be private.
Hobby Lobby doesn’t have to provide health insurance at all if it doesn’t want to. It can cut all employees back to less than 30 hours and avoid this problem all together. Or it can elect to pay the ObamaCare fine instead of providing health insurance. It would be likely be cheaper in the long run. If the government doesn’t allow privately owned businesses to make these types of choices, businesses will drop health insurance, cut full-time positions, and put a bigger burden on the government health care system. The government needs to quit trying to control everyone when it can’t even control itself!
Yes Katie, I understand this, but they chose to incorporate to qualify for protections under corporation that are provided thanks to government regulations, and laws that have been passed. It is a little hypocritical for them to want the protections provided by this, but not want to follow regulations they don’t agree with.
Your other argument about Jewish schools is invalid in this case as a Jewish school would be considered a Religious Institution. Freedom of religion applies to religious institutions and individuals, they are enforcing their religious beliefs on all their employees which would be in violation of the employee’s freedom of religion, why is this any better? And I know you first argument is going to be they don’t have to work there, well the Mr. Green doesn’t have to operate a business either.
Funny you mention separation of church and state. In this case, the state is trying to suppress the religion freedom of a PRIVATELY owned corporation. This is exactly why we have separation of church and state, to prevent the government from controlling religion.
Or maybe you would just prefer the owners to “retire”, close all of their stores and layoff all of their employees.
WRONG! HL or anyone else can refuse to take the pill. But they can’t control someone else taking it. That’s what HL backers are refusing to acknowledge.
That is not the issue at all
It is about telling forcing an individual to provide something for someone else you don’t believe in.
That is tyranny! A total abuse of Government power. Nobody should have their individual rights taken away from them.
Individuals own Companies and Corporations, so don’t even use the argument that they don’t have rights either!
“Anonymous”, haven’t you heard? Corporations AREN’T people!