We are in fine form over here at asktheBigot. We’ve been popping Bon Bons (it is summer after all) and giggling poolside as we watch millions reveal they are slaves to emotionalism after the Hobby Lobby ruling. I am sure you have already seen, sneered at, and/or reposted over-simplified, erroneous and downright pathetic propagandist Facebook memes about women and the pill and Viagra. You have listened to Sandra Fluke try to recapture her fifteen minutes and read HuffPo pieces about how this is going to take women back to the stone age (hand against forehead style swoon here of you please). I barf a little in my mouth every time I see friends declare that the Hobby Lobby ruling is evidence that the War on Women is going strong. Heck, Frau M was unfriended over the truth this time around. Tolerance once again rearing its ugly head. And because Matt Walsh pretty much said everything that needs to be said about the Hobby Lobby craze in his typical spot-on post, and because I have sunscreen to apply and no schedule to keep, I was going to let it be.
Until I saw this.
I am loathe to even give this group attention, but the absurd comparison of Hobby Lobby to ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria which is wreaking destruction across those countries) is so despicably dishonest, so completely disconnected from reality that it merited confrontation. In their post, they claim that the systematic rape of an Iraqi mother and daughter in front of her father (can we please tear our clothes and mourn and throw ashes on our head on behalf of this family? PLEASE!?!) for not converting to Islam and because he refused the pay the infidels tax is similar to the kind of “oppression” that the Hobby Lobby ruling and those Tea Party types bring to women in this country. This from a Facebook group with nearly half a million “likes.” Excuse me, I have more barf to spit out.
Reality check: 
Hobby Lobby provides birth control to their employees. If this fact shocks you, I would encourage you to broaden your news sources because you are a victim of shameless propaganda. Hobby Lobby pays for their employees to receive “the pill” and, because they are good employers, 15 other forms of birth control. However, Hobby Lobby, a company who pays a minimum wage of $14 to their full-time employees and guarantees Sundays off (OPPRESSORS!) would rather close their doors than pay for drugs which terminate the life of a fetus. They are not preventing their employees from obtaining those drugs. They are saying that they will not participate in something that they consider murder. Because they respect human life even in its tiniest form, they have been lumped into that nefarious category of those who wage a “War on Women.”
Speaking of that. If you actually believe there is some War on Women happening in this country, Election Day has been moved to November 5th. Mark your calendars.
Let us now contrast this with ISIS and other radical Islamists. Those who stone women in front of the city municipal building while police look on. Who chain pregnant women to their cell walls next to their 20 month old child because she married “outside of Islam.” Those that systematically slaughter entire communities of minorities in their campaign to impose Sharia law on their countrymen. Study the number of women in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, who suffer domestic violence. Examine the plight of the Nigerian school girls who were stolen and trafficked by the extreme Muslim group Boko Haram who quite obviously don’t subscribe to the White House Twitter feed.
Now tell me about how Hobby Lobby is involved in a “War on Women” because they will not pay for someone’s $44 drug.
I have heard tell there are those that think that Hobby Lobby should be compelled to betray their consciences, convictions and orders from their God because they dare to make money and provide a place for many employees to do the same. After all, if bakers, photographers, and florists have been forced to violate their convictions in the name of tolerance, why not Hobby Lobby too? If you agree, perhaps you could give me your opinion on this state/business clash: In this touching example of fairness a baker has been forced to bake a cake for a KKK event despite it being against her religious beliefs. What say you, progressive reader? Shall The State decide morality for us? Shall they lay one homogeneous blanket of compelled participation in all events and beliefs and practices even if we personally reject them?
I would expect every one of my readers is appalled at the KKK case. That right there folks is a fine example of a double-edged sword. Unintended consequences much? But that is what y’all wanted, right? People who voluntarily start business to be forced to serve anyone, regardless of their moral convictions? When government forces someone to violate their conscience and convictions, everyone loses. You lose. Maybe you get a temporary gain of someone else paying $44 for a drug that you want. But you lose the ability to disagree with a growing bureaucracy which is encroaching into nearly every area of your life.
In other words, half the country apparently is willing to sell their freedom for the rock bottom price of forty-four flippin dollars.
So you feel that Plan B and other abortion-inducing drugs are a good thing and you would like for them to be available to everyone? Fine. Because they are available. To anyone. But what you must understand is that this Hobby Lobby ruling is a victory for you. I want to believe that you, like myself, would rather be imprisoned than to use your life-energy in support of a Klan event. The Hobby Lobby ruling has, hopefully, opened the door for people to decline participation in whatever it is that their conscience objects to, even if they (gasp) have the audacity to open a business.
That, dear friends is the kind of liberty that this rare and beautiful government system was designed to protect. And frankly, lets try and hike the price higher than forty-four dollars before we sell out the freedom that was hard-won by our armed forces. And happy Independence Day while we’re at it.
askthe"Bigot" 
Your last sentence? Magnifico!!
The Frau’s doing. And yes, it was a good one. Thanks for commenting!!
Always my pleasure.
AskMe: Spot on, as usual, my friend. I wonder if you know how much I appreciate you.
This is the new “tolerance”. It is horrific, oppressive, comparable to the most heinous of crimes and howl-worthy to violate the “rights” of Hobby Lobby employees to terminate life. It is courageous, brave, fearless and honorable to violate the rights of the Green’s to actually LIVE their religion, not just talk about it. I am proud of SCOTUS (something I haven’t had occasion to write in awhile) for upholding the rights of even the one against the violation by the many. That is the America I remember and am proud to serve.
Frau M: We compliment each other again! I, too, was “unfriended” over this. While I grieve the loss of any friend and will continue to do so, I remember that we will be persecuted and reviled when we follow the truth. I will pray for my friend and for yours and I will rejoice that I have found a new friend in you. (Not to be snarky, but it seems like a more than fair swap 🙂
Agreed.
Great post. The amount of propaganda and emotionalism being shown is rather disturbing. I can see it so clearly, you’re being played people, manipulated, your critical thinking skills bypassed, and in the ultimate twist of irony, people have convinced themselves that their response is quite rational, in fact, it’s evidence of their ability to reason.
I too have read dozens of FB posts declaring there to be a war on women, how oppressed and abused we are in the US, how this ruling spits on the graves of my ancestors, demeans and disparages women the world over….and on and on it goes, becoming more and more melodramatic and hysterical until I just can’t read another word.
So that it’s said first by a friendly voice rather than a critic, the KKK story doesn’t appear to be real. It doesn’t need to affect your point, though, because this is a highly possible scenario. There are many groups that the left vigorously opposes, who use various goods and services. There will be clashes. The difference is that I doubt that many on the right would intentionally cause such a confrontation of ideologies, they would either not make a show of who they are or they would find someone willing to do the job.
The suggestion of this facebook post comparing Christianity (Hobby Lobby being just a proxy) to ISIS is recklessly uninformed. For one, what HL wants is simply to not have to pay for something it finds morally objectionable. This is an entirely different thing than saying that they want the employee to pay for something, or do something, or not do something themselves. It is a matter of rights NOT to do something.
Second, the friction in this particular case came about only because of increasing regulation in the healthcare market. Both HL and its employees where going along their merry way with coverage until the government came to inform their employees that they had some *new* rights that were being denied.
Third, slippery slope thinking (which the left elsewhere abhors) has run amok here. This FB post suggests a very ugly road at the end of all of this. But if we want to see what Christians actually desire, we can simply look to history. We can look to what businesses were doing before the new healthcare rulings in this case. We can also look to see what those in decades past, when “Christianity” was in vogue, were doing. No one was being ask to pay the non-Christian tax, or being raped and killed in the name of Jesus. There were certainly clashes of ideologies, but nothing worth comparing to ISIS even on their best day.
And before someone jumps in to lay Slavery and Jim Crow laws at the feet of Christians please first educate yourself on the committed Christian response to these things, the Democratic party’s culpability, and the ideological impact that Darwinism had on racial thinking. You may also look to see what present conservative Christians think about racism. In spite of claims to the contrary (because we object to the policies of a president who just HAPPENS to be black), Christians are perfectly happy with racial equality. What non-Christians should “worry” about is what Christians actually claim to want. I’m sure there’s more than enough to object to there without contrived, imaginary atrocities.
Hi Pruett. Great to see you again. I did spend some time poking around about the Klan story late last night and while there were several articles about it, they all seemed to circle back to the one above, which I wasn’t able to substantiate. (Looks like the KKK did however win a legal battle over the right to “Adopt a Highway” with the help of the ACLU, interestingly enough.) Just looking at some of the websites that picked up the story gave me the willies.
It has been pointed out that the objections to coverage did not arise from within Hobby Lobby. This from you above hits the nail on the head: “the government came to inform their employees that they had some *new* rights that were being denied.”
The really ironic thing is that (so I hear) Hobby Lobby was previously offering healthcare that included one or more of the 4 types they are objecting to. I think what probably happened was that they hadn’t looked into these things very deeply, but when the new regulations came along they were forced into reviewing all of this in detail. As my son jokingly says whenever the least little problem comes along, “Thanks Obama.”
I think the objection to the Hobby Lobby case is less about the right to conscience than it is about what people should have a right to be conscientious of. Many fear a slippery slope, but there has been a slippery slope of moral latitude we’ve been descending for decades.
For some, that is by design; they call it “progress” and “freedom” and “rights.” Others differ in some of these matters and are villainized for those opposing beliefs by the same people who once appealed to personal choice, tolerance, diversity, or moral relativism in support of their own differing views. What once was a matter of personal liberty has now become a matter of public obligation, not only to affirm the new beliefs and behaviors as morally acceptable but in some cases to facilitate and fund them as well.
This recent SCOTUS ruling suggests some obstacle to, or refuge from, the progressive program of terraforming the moral landscape. For this reason it is hated even more than it is feared for the alleged rights that some may be denied. I realize that there are some who do not share the vision of the full progressive program, but they are often unwittingly in the same boat and share the same view of the passing shore.
I know you didn’t ask for my opinion, but… “Reality check: Hobby Lobby provides birth control to their employees. If this fact shocks you, I would encourage you to broaden your news sources because you are a victim of shameless propaganda. Hobby Lobby pays for their employees to receive “the pill” and, because they are good employers, 15 other forms of birth control.” should be a subtitle or at the very least in big bold letters.
More importantly, I think you could reframe this into something more substantial and that touches everyone in society. As you’re a mother and productive member of a community, I’d be very interested to hear your opinions on when and how you felt it was the right time to have children. I’m pretty sure you could teach a lesson or two in that regard. I’m guessing you weren’t pregnant as a teen or out of wedlock (no offence to anyone who falls into those categories).
Going with the controversy alone, you’re missing an opportunity to help, advise and basically lay out a path that obviously works for you. There’s a certain charm to a life with four children and two dogs in a car, in my opinion rather more charming than 16 and pregnant on MTV. Could the general public have a look at that and then hear how and why it works? 🙂
You’re just trying to further endear yourself to me. Keep talking. I dig it.
I’m serious. If your objective is to show people how to live a better life, then this is a chance to do it. Take the Hobby Lobby story and run with it.
What’s behind it? What are the points that really matter to you that make you hold the positions you hold? Not the symptomatic aspect, but the roots. Why is it bad to do x or y in a practical sense? Go beyond the controversy.
You might be surprised to hear I’m not a defender of having children out of wedlock. I’m also against a whole range of people having children at all (hence, I think birth control is hugely important).
If you like we can discuss this further.
Thank you for your emails and for functioning as a counselor. Perhaps Jesus knew I needed a blogging discipler. 😉 I think you are right- too many of my posts are reactionary. I need to do a better job of stating what I am for and why.
Use one to lead to the other. The news story gets people’s attention, but your message is, I imagine, more than that- and that makes it more interesting to the general public. Blogging to the choir is a dead end 😉
I think Pink has a point….when you write a post, I always get it….but it’s because you and I share a common vocabulary. More than that, we share common conceptual knowledge. The average person (average Christian, even) may not share that schema. I know from (endlessly) teaching language/vocabulary that you have to go back about a half to one full step BEYOND a student’s current functioning level when designing a program to increase that student’s vocabulary/concept development. Adults share common cognitive functioning, unlike my students, but nobody knows what hasn’t been explained to them. Perhaps to say “this is my reaction to news about X and this is why” might reach even more people?
I’m liberal and I never wanted a baker to have to make a cake his convictions such as a gay wedding. I think of it as someone trying to force me to make a cake for a white supremacy rally. That’s a no. I know some people are like this, but many who do not agree with you are not. And actually from the lawyers I’ve spoken to, the Hobby Lobby ruling does not relate to the baker situation in any meaningful legal way. Just a thought. I also don’t think there is a war on women. I think there is pretty much a war against everyone by almost everyone when their less-cool, fear-mongering, human heads prevail. I’ve done it and I’ve committed to not doing it anymore. Xoxo. PS Frau lost a friend over her post!? Maybe they never liked her anyways and finally figured out how to get rid of her. Lol. Love you Frau. (I really do now.)
” I think there is pretty much a war against everyone by almost everyone when their less-cool, fear-mongering, human heads prevail. I’ve done it and I’ve committed to not doing it anymore.”
Yep, I can dig that. BTDT