Hobby Lobby’s secret agenda: How it’s quietly funding a vast right-wing movement
Exclusive: How entities related to the company are quietly pumping tens of millions into a mélange of fringe causes
ELI CLIFTON
Hobby Lobby says its just trying to protect its religious freedom. The family-founded and -run company is closed on Sundays, has an employee manual that includes
biblical references, and announces on
its website its commitment to Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with biblical principles. The company got in hot water last year when an employee
told a blogger that no Hanukkah decorations were stocked because Mr. Green is the owner of the company, hes a Christian, and those are his values.
Though the company went on to apologize, the battle for its Christian identity was revived this week when lawyers for the company argued before the Supreme Court that the company should not have to comply with the Affordable Care Acts contraception mandate. The issue, says Hobby Lobby co-founder Barbara Green, isnt that the company wants to meddle with womens rights to take contraceptive drugs. Were not trying to control that,
she said. Were just trying to control our participation in it.
But a document published here for the first time reveals Hobby Lobby appears to be going much further than protecting freedom, providing funding for a group that backs a political network of activist groups deeply engaged in pushing a Christian agenda into American law. The document shows entities related to the company to be two of the largest donors to the organization funding a right-wing Christian agenda, investing tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars into a vast network of organizations working in concert to advance an agenda that would allow businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians and deny their employees contraceptives under a maximalist interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause of the United States Constitution.
That network of activist groups has
succeeded in passing legislation in Arizona requiring women to undergo an ultrasound before an abortion, banning taxpayer-funded insurance paying for government employees abortions, defining marriage as a union between a man and woman, and funding abstinence education. And theres evidence that its efforts go well beyond the borders of the Copper State.
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http://www.salon.com/2014/03/27/hobby_lobbys_secret_agenda_how_its_secretly_funding_a_vast_right_wing_movement/