Hobby Lobby Stores Inc.’s 600 U.S. craft shops close each Sunday, posting a notice that employees are spending the day with their families and at worship. It’s a visible sign that the company is as focused on honoring God as it is on making money.
That dual mission is at the core of an ideological showdown over President Barack Obama’s health-care law, set for argument before the U.S. Supreme Court next week. Hobby Lobby, a family-owned business that says it looks to the Bible for guidance, is seeking a religious exemption from the requirement that employers cover birth control as part of worker-insurance plans.
Hobby Lobby is asking the court to give for-profit corporations the same religious freedoms as individuals, with potentially sweeping rights to opt out of laws they say are immoral. A victory for the company would also put a dent in a health-care law that remains under siege on multiple fronts two years after the Supreme Court upheld its central provisions.
“Why as a family, because we’ve incorporated, do I have to give up religious freedoms, which are core to what our nation was founded on?” said Steve Green, the president of the Oklahoma City-based company and son of its founder.
