Love ‘em or hate ‘em, but at least do so based upon sound reasoning.
Coming To a Town Near You
It was recently announced that retailer Hobby Lobby is building a store in Traverse City.
Within seconds of that announcement came the negative comments regarding Hobby Lobby’s right to exist, and Traverse City’s despicable choice of allowing Hobby Lobby to set up shop. There were repeated indignant declarations of refusing to shop at Hobby Lobby due to things like religion, women’s rights, and reproductive freedom. However, as the day went on, the positive comments and welcoming statements began to outweigh the negative.
All of this is of no surprise, and is actually one of the beautiful things about a free-market capitalist system.
In the interest of complete transparency, I don’t shop at Hobby Lobby. I’m just not a bolted fabric, faux flowers, macramé and vases kinda guy, and I simply cannot get excited about a sale on miniature garden gnomes. Give me a bike shop, a home-improvement center or a music store any day. But I digress – back to my original purpose. To the fervently indignant folks who choose to publicly “take a stand;” at the very least, let’s all be crystal clear (and hopefully reasonable) about why we do what we do.
The “Issue(s)”
In response to one man’s expressed appreciation that Hobby Lobby was run by Christian people, one woman wrote: “Except most Christians are asshats I’d rather not be around.” Of note – the US Census reports that over 75% of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Therefore, by her own admission this woman thinks that at least 38% of Americans are asshats. That seems a bit overly condemnatory.
Another woman wrote: “I definitely won’t be shopping at Hobby Lobby due to the owner’s policies toward women and health care.” I think it’s safe to presume that this is based (at least in part) upon Hobby Lobby’s very public position with respect to certain forms of contraception.
Pertinent Facts and Relevant Questions
For the record, the US FDA has approved 20 birth control methods, 16 to which Hobby Lobby has no objection, including the most effective and most commonly/widely-used methods. Hobby Lobby and their employee health insurance plan support those 16 options because they believe doing so does not violate their US Constitutionally-protected religious freedoms. In 2014, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby’s position. In addition, I think we can all agree that “health care” involves considerably more than just contraception, and I am unaware of any other aspects of common health care to which Hobby Lobby objects.
Hobby Lobby has a workforce of 34,000 people, 69% of whom are women. Why would over 23,000 American women willingly choose to work at and support the mission of a company that is allegedly anti-woman? Of equal importance, I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of Hobby Lobby customers are women, to the tune of more than $4 billion in revenue in 2017. Again, if Hobby Lobby is so terrible, why would independent, free-thinking American woman give to Hobby Lobby $billions of their hard-earned income?
Take an Educated Stand
We are all encouraged to shop where we wish, just as we are free to be angry with whom we wish. However, it is in our collective best interest to be rational and factually-driven in our reasoning, especially in this day and age of what seems to be an agenda-driven mainstream media offering spin from every direction. We need to dig deeper to learn more, increasing our knowledge beyond that which is being reported by those with whom we are comfortable. If we’re going to be part of the discussion, let’s at least be erudite in our passion.
Five by Five from the 457 