Hobby Lobby's Sore and Sobby Foes

“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24).

You would have thought the Supreme Court had approved, as Professor Henry Higgins once rhymed, “a new edition of the Spanish Inquisition” when they recently ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood. To be sure, liberal politicians and groups were out in force, wailing and lamenting the ruling. Hillary Clinton was quick to get to a camera and make this statement:

The corporation’s employers can impose their religious beliefs on their employees and, of course, denying women the right to contraception as part of their health care plan is exactly that. I find it deeply disturbing that we are going in that direction.

Terry O’Neill has been the president of the National Organization of Women since 2009. She chimed in with equally erroneous sentiments:

And the Supreme Court is simply wrong to honor gender bigotry that Hobby Lobby stores and Conestoga Wood are promoting. That’s just wrong. It’s bigotry to keep women away from having basic health care.

To say the least, feminists have expressed their anger at this ruling; the problem is that they failed to tell the truth concerning it. Here are some facts.

1. Hobby Lobby is not imposing its beliefs on any of its employees, but if they were, a simple solution exists: don’t work for them and encourage others not to buy from them. That won’t work, of course, because the public likes them, and they are good to their employees, paying above the minimum wage.

2. They have not denied any women their contraceptive “rights.” Exactly when did contraception become a right? Because liberals say it is?

3. Hobby Lobby is not guilty of gender bigotry. By the way, can this new phrase apply to men, also?

4. No women are being kept away from “basic health care.” How long in the history of the world or even the United States, for that matter, has contraception been considered “basic health care”?

The Facts

This case involved freedom of religion. It concerned the principle of whether or not a company could be forced to violate its religious beliefs by being required to pay for its employees birth control measures that would terminate a pregnancy, such as the “morning after” pill. Some birth control products prevent pregnancy from occurring. Of course, the Catholic Church condemns their use, but most people do not register a protest against those. Neither did Hobby Lobby.

In fact, of the twenty birth control products that employers were required to supply for their employees, Hobby Lobby made available 16 of them. Sixteen! A woman could have any of sixteen options supplied to her free of charge. But that was not good enough for feminists. No. It had to be all twenty—including four that would terminate a new life that had already been conceived.

It so happens that the owners of Hobby Lobby have religious convictions. They did not resort to appealing to religion as a convenient way to oppose this requirement. No, they genuinely are religious, as everyone knows who has tried to shop there on a Sunday. Hobby Lobby is closed on the first day of the week, as is Chick-fil-A. Because the owners of Hobby Lobby have religious convictions, they are pro-life and do not want any part of terminating the existence of a child who already exists. Most people would say, “No problem. We do not want you to violate your conscience.”

But no one has ever accused Kathleen Sebelius of being reasonable—or competent. She was the genius behind the Obamacare rollout debacle—but more importantly, as governor of Kansas, she refused to do anything to stop Tiller the Baby Killer, who performed late-term abortions on healthy children. If there is one thing that is a sacred right to Feminists, it is abortion.

Sebelius, therefore, with the approval of the Obama administration, filed suit against Hobby Lobby so that they would be forced by law to supply pregnancy-terminating pills. This was not a case of rights for women at all; it decided whether or not we are going to be a country that allows the practice of freedom of religion or not, and it ought to frighten us that the vote was 5-4.

Why?

Why do people misrepresent the truth? Only so many options are possible. First, they do not know the facts, in which case they are speaking out of ignorance. Second, they know the facts but are purposely lying, which shows they do not believe Revelation 21:8 any more than they do Luke 1:41, 44. To claim that this ruling by the Supreme Court was denying women their “right” to contraception is false, when sixteen various birth control pills continue to be supplied. Again, no one is imposing their religious beliefs on someone else. Even if the company had refused to supply all 20, no woman’s right would have been denied. She could pay the $10 a month out of her own pocket or get them from Planned Parenthood for free. Hello!

Politicians want low-information voters to think there is a “war on women” (a mythical assertion) so they can present themselves as women’s saviors. This idea was begun in the last election by George Stephanopoulos when he continually badgered Mitt Romney to speak to an “issue” which no one of either party was discussing. From the moment that question was answered, the charge was made that there was a war on women. This type of treatment was the reason the article, “The Day Journalism Died,” was published on November 9, 2008. It is still dead with no resurrection in sight. “Journalism” has become so biased that little pretense of objectivity is even being offered. Would anyone argue that Stephanopoulos is unbiased?

After the Hobby Lobby ruling, Irin Carmon (a “reporter” and commentator for MSNBC.com) said: “The context of this is an all-out assault on access to contraception and to other reproductive health care services.” None of what happened could be construed as an “all-out assault on access to contraception.” This is nothing less than hysterical pandering to those who do not take the time to inform themselves. The New York Times sets the pace with its liberal slant on the news, and other papers follow suit. Their philosophy is: “It doesn’t matter what the facts are if enough people read our spin on it.” Tragically, many do, and so they probably will believe all of those who have decried and misrepresented the Hobby Lobby decision.

Misrepresentation

The important thing for Christians to remember is that we may not be able to take what we see and hear at face value. We ought not to be surprised by the bias of the media; no one has suffered at their hands worse than Christians have. Remember how we were maligned on Donahue back in the ‘80s? Garland Elkins spoke for “us,” and if he had not, the program would have selected someone of their own. It was a long way into the program before he ever got a chance to speak. When he did, he was kind but firm and quoted the Bible as the reason for why we do what we do. His appeal to the Word of God prompted one member of the audience to say, “These people are blinded by the Bible!” Apparently, those professing to be Christians are not supposed to submit to the Word of God!

When Mary Winkler shot and killed her husband in cold blood, Nancy Grace invited a Baptist on her program to portray “us” to her TV audience, which proved to be a farce. For years, many brethren have represented the pro-life position, and how much time did the news media give us, besides a few seconds if we were lucky? The news media is about as one-sided politically as they are on moral issues. In the past 20 years, how much time have they devoted to argumentation against homosexuality in general and against homosexual marriage in particular? An occasional letter to the editor is published while most of the information disseminated carries the opposing view (see the article on page 3).

Action

What options are available for Christians?

1. Don’t depend on the mainstream media. They ignore major stories or give them only a few seconds. Check out cable news, talk radio, or the Internet, where you will hear, see, or read undoctored clips of what someone said. Sources such as Media Matters cannot be trusted since they take quotes out of context and actually leave out pertinent statements.

2. Realize that the situation described here is not going to change. The news media has a liberal bias—by their own admission. While we know their prejudices, there is no use whining about it—even though it is unfair. State it factually, and move on.

3. Pray for Truth to triumph. Pray for the elitists to be “hoist on their own petard” (as Shakespeare would say). Pray that everyone will see through their one-sided presentation of issues.

4. Realize that they can be defeated. It took 40 years, but most people now oppose abortion despite the media’s total support of it. A grassroots opposition is about the only way to defeat those who have access to most of the influential outlets. Take advantage of private conversations, e-mails, etc., to provide Biblical wisdom. Don’t give up.