Well done to the Supreme Court.

[Felch]

You don't see any hypocrisy in Hobby Lobby screaming in protest of contraceptives, while doing business with a country like China, where abortion is not only legal, but mandated?

China denies a great many human rights to its people. Do you criticize any other company for importing products from them? Apple executives wouldn't want to be put on trial in a kangaroo court, as happens so often in China. So obviously they shouldn't have the iPhones assembled there, right?

Do you see how that reasoning is neither convincing nor persuasive? We don't limit our international commerce to those countries that share all of our concerns for human and civil rights. Otherwise you might want to stop buying gasoline until the OPEC countries all extend full civil rights their LGBT communities.

[Dinner]

The contraception ruling is so absurd especially since birth control pills are used to treat a number of other conditions. Now, what about the numerous objections from other religious groups which are going to come forward. Several religious groups, including both christians and muslims, object to the paying of interest as usury so should they get a religious exemption? Jehovah witnesses don't believe in organ transplants or blood transfusions so should they be able to refuse such things in their health plans even for employees who aren't JWs? Numerous medical procedures use tissue from pigs so I guess Jews and Muslims can now refuse to allow their employees those medical procedures based upon their employer's religion? What about "Christian Science" fundalmentalists who believe the only sound treatment for any illness to to pray it away? I guess they can now refuse insurance plans which cover anything.

This is a ruling by morons for morons.

[Ben Kenobi]

China denies a great many human rights to its people. Do you criticize any other company for importing products from them? Apple executives wouldn't want to be put on trial in a kangaroo court, as happens so often in China. So obviously they shouldn't have the iPhones assembled there, right?

No, Felch, you see how it works is that these companies all buy 'LGBT' credits. They work like carbon credits. So long as they pay money to the movement, they get a pass. Hobby Lobby hasn't paid so they get shook down.

[Ben Kenobi]

The contraception ruling is so absurd especially since birth control pills are used to treat a number of other conditions.

Which explains why Hobby Lobby continues to provide 10 different forms of contraceptive coverages.

[Dinner]

OH, and let's not forget how the owners of places like Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-a (or their ilk) will no doubt some day be suing for the "right" to not hire blacks, gays, muslims, athiests, jews, or any other group they deem to be inferior on religious grounds. According to this ruling it is all now open season.

A ruling by morons for morons and the worst part is the right wing justices claim other types of religious discrimination aren't allowed but they seem to specifically agree that women are a valid target for discrimination.

[Ben Kenobi]

Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-a (or their ilk) will no doubt some day be suing for the "right" to not hire blacks, gays, muslims, athiests, jews, or any other group they deem to be inferior on religious grounds.

Alito already smacked this argument down.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf

Nor does it provide a shield for employers who might cloak illegal discrimination as a religious practice. United States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252, which upheld the payment of Social Security taxes despite an employer’s religious objection, is not analogous. It turned primarily on the special problems associated with a national system of taxation; and if Lee were a RFRA case, the fundamental point would still be that there is no less restrictive alternative to the categorical requirement to pay taxes. Here, there is an alternative to the contraceptive mandate

[Felch]

OH, and let's not forget how the owners of places like Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-a (or their ilk) will no doubt some day be suing for the "right" to not hire blacks, gays, muslims, athiests, jews, or any other group they deem to be inferior on religious grounds. According to this ruling it is all now open season.

Feel free to read the ruling. It's not like it's kept secret. So if you're ignorant, inform yourself. And if you've already read it, please stop misinforming others. Because there's nothing in the ruling that saying anything about legally discriminating against minorities or anything like that.

[MrFun]

Feel free to read the ruling. It's not like it's kept secret. So if you're ignorant, inform yourself. And if you've already read it, please stop misinforming others. Because there's nothing in the ruling that saying anything about legally discriminating against minorities or anything like that.

Hobby Lobby is already given the right to discriminate against women, regarding healthcare.

[MrFun]

Apparently, Hobby Lobby invests in contraception manufacturers.

Hobby Lobby's Hypocrisy: The Company's Retirement Plan Invests in Contraception Manufacturers
When Hobby Lobby filed its case against Obamacare's contraception mandate, its retirement plan had more than $73 million invested in funds with stakes in contraception makers.
—By Molly Redden | Tue Apr. 1, 2014 6:00 AM EDT

When Obamacare compelled businesses to include emergency contraception in employee health care plans, Hobby Lobby, a national chain of craft stores, fought the law all the way to the Supreme Court. The Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate, the company's owners argued, forced them to violate their religious beliefs. But while it was suing the government, Hobby Lobby spent millions of dollars on an employee retirement plan that invested in the manufacturers of the same contraceptive products the firm's owners cite in their lawsuit.

Documents filed with the Department of Labor and dated December 2012—three months after the company's owners 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).

Several of the mutual funds in Hobby Lobby's retirement plan have stock holdings in companies that manufacture the specific drugs and devices that the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, is fighting to keep out of Hobby Lobby's health care policies: the emergency contraceptive pills Plan B and Ella, and copper and hormonal intrauterine devices.

These companies include Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which makes Plan B and ParaGard, a copper IUD, and Actavis, which makes a generic version of Plan B and distributes Ella. Other stock holdings in the mutual funds selected by Hobby Lobby include Pfizer, the maker of Cytotec and Prostin E2, which are used to induce abortions; Bayer, which manufactures the hormonal IUDs Skyla and Mirena; AstraZeneca, which has an Indian subsidiary that manufactures Prostodin, Cerviprime, and Partocin, three drugs commonly used in abortions; and Forest Laboratories, which makes Cervidil, a drug used to induce abortions. Several funds in the Hobby Lobby retirement plan also invested in Aetna and Humana, two health insurance companies that cover surgical abortions, abortion drugs, and emergency contraception in many of the health care policies they sell.

In a brief filed with the Supreme Court, the Greens object to covering Plan B, Ella, and IUDs because they claim that these products can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in a woman's uterus—a process the Greens consider abortion. But researchers reject the notion that emergency contraceptive pills prevent implantation the implantation of a fertilized egg. Instead, they work by delaying ovulation or making it harder for sperm to swim to the egg. The Green's contention that the pills cause abortions is a central pillar of their argument for gutting the contraception mandate. Yet, for years, Hobby Lobby's health insurance plans did cover Plan B and Ella. It was only in 2012, when the Greens considered filing a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, that they dropped these drugs from the plan.

A website Hobby Lobby set up to answer questions about the Supreme Court case states that its 401(k) plan comes with "a generous company match." In 2012, Hobby Lobby contributed $3.8 million to its employee savings plans, which had 13,400 employee participants at the beginning of that year.

The information on Hobby Lobby's 401(k) investments is included in the company's 2013 annual disclosure to the Department of Labor. The records contain a list, dated December 31, 2012, of 24 funds that were included in its employer-sponsored retirement plan. MorningStar, an investment research firm, provided Mother Jones with the names of the companies in nine of those funds as of December 31, 2012. Each fund's portfolio consists of at least dozens if not hundreds of different holdings.

All nine funds—which have assets of $73 million, or three-quarters of the Hobby Lobby retirement plan's total assets—contained holdings that clashed with the Greens' stated religious principles.

Hobby Lobby and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the conservative group that provided Hobby Lobby with legal representation, did not respond to questions about these investments or whether Hobby Lobby has changed its retirement plan.

In their Supreme Court complaint, Hobby Lobby's owners chronicle the many ways in which they avoid entanglements with objectionable companies. Hobby Lobby stores do not sell shot glasses, for example, and the Greens decline requests from beer distributors to back-haul beer on Hobby Lobby trucks.

Similar options exist for companies that want to practice what's sometimes called faith-based investing. To avoid supporting companies that manufacture abortion drugs—or products such as alcohol or pornography—religious investors can turn to a cottage industry of mutual funds that screen out stocks that religious people might consider morally objectionable. The Timothy Plan and the Ave Maria Fund, for example, screen for companies that manufacture abortion drugs, support Planned Parenthood, or engage in embryonic stem cell research. Dan Hardt, a Kentucky financial planner who specializes in faith-based investing, says the performances of these funds are about the same as if they had not been screened. But Hobby Lobby's managers either were not aware of these options or chose not to invest in them.

[MrFun]

China denies a great many human rights to its people. Do you criticize any other company for importing products from them? Apple executives wouldn't want to be put on trial in a kangaroo court, as happens so often in China. So obviously they shouldn't have the iPhones assembled there, right?

Do you see how that reasoning is neither convincing nor persuasive? We don't limit our international commerce to those countries that share all of our concerns for human and civil rights. Otherwise you might want to stop buying gasoline until the OPEC countries all extend full civil rights their LGBT communities.

Shame on Hobby Lobby owners then, for valuing money over their religious conscience.

[DinoDoc]

Apparently, Hobby Lobby invests in contraception manufacturers.

No one of any importance cares. Jesus! There is ALOT of whining over the fact a company refuses to pay for 4 out of approximately 20 available forms of contraception.

[Felch]

Shame on Hobby Lobby owners then, for valuing money over their religious conscience.

That's your ****ing response? You just ignore what I say, and keep on touting your partisan talking point bull****?

Stop buying gasoline, MrFun. Stop valuing your own personal convenience over the civil and human rights of the worldwide LGBT community.

[Sava]

The whole "corporations are people" thing went so well last election, how do you think this will play in 2016?

Just curious, does this mean Hobby Lobby doesn't have to pay its employees either? Because by paying them, you are giving them an intermediate exchange medium that can be used to purchase abortions.

[kentonio]

Presumably a company could also impose a mandatory religious tithe on employees too right?

[Ben Kenobi]

Sure. They could unionize.