Paging Doctor HobbLobb...

So it looks like lawyers for Hobby Lobby just convinced 10th Circuit Judge Joe Heaton that the new Affordable Care Act probably wouldn't apply to their company and that the fines for not complying with it are lame and that they shouldn't have to pay them if they don't feel like it. It's a decision that I kind think of violates the spirit of what a fine is supposed to be, but hey, what do I know?

Well, I'll be damned.

Just so you know, your friends lied
to you. Nobody likes homemade gifts.

Hobby Lobby, if you've never heard of it, is a craft and hobby store that sells things like felt, popsicle sticks and glitter to the kind of people who spend far too much time on Pinterest* and give out homemade Christmas presents. They made the news earlier this year for announcing that they plan to defy the new health care law because it covers emergency contraception. I complained about this back in January, but if you want me to sum up, Hobby Lobby is owned by evangelical Christians who feel they shouldn't have to cover the morning after pill under the ACA.

The Bible was written during the Bronze Age when no one had ever even heard of Plan-B, so what's the problem? Well, emergency contraceptives are taken after intercourse to disrupt conception which some Christians see as a form of abortion. So their argument-that they're being asked to violate their conscience-is not completely unreasonable.

"So the morning after pill, gay people, shellfish, clothes made of two different materials,
and music that doesn't suck...man, is there anything that isn't an abomination with you?"

-Steve, one of the guys that wrote the Bible

(oh, like you know who wrote the Bible)

Above: David Green, founder of 

Hobby Lobby and CFO of your vagina.

Note, I said not completely. The comparison offered up by the 10th Circuit is that a kosher butcher wouldn't be asked to put ham in a sandwich so why should Hobby Lobby be required to comply with the law? If that sounds like a tremendous load of horseshit to you, that's because it is. First of all, kosher butchers aren't trying to weasel out of Obamacare. Secondly, while Hobby Lobby's owners may have an objection to emergency contraceptive, that doesn't mean the people that work for them do. I mean, why should employee health care options be limited by David Green's beliefs?

You know, not to get all slippery slope on you here, but if companies can claim religious exemptions from having to provide health care, isn't the ACA suddenly screwed? Every corporation in America is going to suddenly find Jesus if it means bigger profits. 

"Tim, I'd like you to meet Jesus Christ, he's going to be helping us out around here,
cutting costs, meeting our Q3 goals, oh, and he's a fucking lunatic on the racquetball court."

"Quick, look busy, Jesus is coming!"

Look, no one wants David Green's religious liberty to get trampled on and you can totally see where he and his supporters are coming from when they say that the law is unfair to religious companies. But if the Court decides in Hobby Lobby's favor, wouldn't they be putting one guy's beliefs ahead of his employees' rights? I mean, David Green's boss might be Jesus, but Hobby Lobby's employees work for a for-profit company and are entitled to fair and equal treatment under the law.

I feel for Green and his supporters, I do, but health care should be between a person and their doctor, not a person, the giant for-profit corporation they work for, said corporation's religious beliefs and then the doctor. That's just unfair and more than a little icky...

"Hey Allan, good news, I just talked to your shift supervisor and she says her pastor
thinks it would be ok for me to remove your anal cyst. So, how does Thursday sound?"

*Yup, picking on Pinterest is a thing I do now.