Tweets That Sum Up Why Hobby Lobby Is Trash
Hobby Lobby calls for a Christian-run government and Twitter’s not here for it
While most stores were busy advertising their July 4th sales, Hobby Lobby went in a slightly different direction this Independence Day. Instead of promos on crayons, yarn, and paintbrushes, Hobby Lobby took out a full-page ad in newspapers across the country basically calling for a Christian-run government. Because that’s a totally normal, sane thing for a business to do. And Hobby Lobby is a normal, sane business, right? Wrong!
This company has been on some B.S. for years now. According to Newsweek, the craft retailer has run the ads pretty regularly since the mid-1990s because its founder felt “commissioned by God” to run them. So the company’s position basically seems to be that while God doesn’t meddle with the death and destruction and starvation happening all over the world on a pretty much constant basis, He or She is fully invested in helping a crappy crafts store launch a theocracy in America. Seems legit.
The ads are just one example of Hobby Lobby’s special brand of nonsense. The store famously fought for the right to deny birth control coverage in employee health insurance plans, claiming it violated its religious ethos. And their behavior throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has been, in a word, abhorrent.
Of course, Twitter was immediately ready to pounce on their latest controversy.
The ad featured quotes from Founding Fathers, Presidents, and Supreme Court justices supposedly extolling the virtues of a religious government, conveniently leaving out that whole separation of church and state thing enshrined in the Constitution — something the founders felt so strongly about they literally put it in the first amendment. No matter how many out-of-context quotes Hobby Lobby wants to blast across the pages of the East Bumblef*ck Daily News, there’s no changing that.
Why we didn’t all stop shopping there back then and drive them out of business is beyond me, but here’s a tip: if you want to stock up on yarn and stickers and “Live, Laugh, Love” signs without a side of religious dogma, Michael’s and Joanne’s sell all the same stuff (and honestly, who are you kidding, anyway? You know your house is already overflowing with craft supplies as it is, and when was the last time you even finished a Pinterest project?).
People on Twitter were quick to point out that all Hobby Lobby is really doing is making the Christians in America who don’t harbor basically fundamentalist viewpoints look bad.
Inevitably, the hashtag #BoycottHobbyLobby began trending among people who said they were absolutely done with the store — but there are just as many Twitters users voicing their enthusiasm for Hobby Lobby’s stance, saying they looked forward to shopping there again. Only in America (or I guess I should say ‘Merica) could one’s craft store of choice become a controversial decision.
