Court Case Is Just One Way Hobby Lobby Is Trying to Impose Its Beliefs

Hobby Lobby

Dominionism (Christian Reconstructionism) is the dangerously tyrannical idea that god granted Christians the right to force either a nation governed by Christians or one governed by conservative Christian biblical law on a nation that exists primarily among evangelical fundamentalists in the United States; it is theocracy and very closely related to theonomy. Theonomy is the idea, espoused by American evangelical Christians, that Mosaic Law must be observed by all Americans under pain of death and is the exact Christian equivalent of Islamic Sharia Law the Dominionist movement has worked towards for well over twenty years.

Dominionists lust to implement a Christian theocracy to govern America along the lines of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and tearing democracy down by Republican legislation has been a slow but methodical means to institute biblical law in America.  However, Dominionists have been treated to a quicker and more permanent means to prevail by using the conservative Supreme Court to rule that Christians’ religious liberty supersedes established law, and they are giddy their objective is within their reach. The Hobby Lobby case before the High Court is a golden opportunity the company’s Christian Reconstructionist owners hope will help hasten a theocratic coup d’état in America, but it is just one avenue in the company’s multi-faceted machinations to impose their version of  Christianity on the nation.

Hobby Lobby co-founder Barbara Green said that as a good Christian corporation Hobby Lobby is not before the Supreme Court because they want to meddle with a woman’s right to take contraceptives. She saidWe’re not trying to control that, we’re just trying to control our participation in it.” However, that statement is as completely deceitful and an outright lie as the company claiming they are only protecting their religious freedom and Barbara Green knows it; apparently good Christians lie with impunity if they do it in the “lord god almighty’s name.” It is beyond the pale that Green has the temerity to lie with a straight face and claim they are not meddling with a woman’s right to choose when they are attempting to use their Christianity to disregard the law and prohibit a woman’s right to use contraceptives. The Greens are on a crusade to do much more than protect their own religious freedom or dominate America’s women by heavily funding, with the Koch brothers, a political network of Christian activists deeply invested in forcing a biblical agenda into American law initially to subjugate women and put an end to equal rights for gays; dominating the rest of the population will come later.

To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.

According to a federal tax document revealed last week, Hobby Lobby is the primary funder of the “the largest Christian grant-making foundation in the world” (National Christian Charitable Foundation) that was the principal funder of two Christian groups, the Center for Arizona Policy and the Alliance Defending Freedom, that produced and actively promoted Arizona’s “religious freedom to disregard the Constitution” (SB 1062) legislation vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer last month. The tax document shows a total of nearly $65 million in contributions from a combination of Jon Cargill, Hobby Lobby CFO, and “Crafts Etc.,” a Hobby Lobby affiliate company. The document shows that Hobby Lobby-related contributions were from a facility housing Hobby Lobby’s headquarters in Oklahoma City, and that Hobby Lobby was the single largest source of tax-deductible donations to the Dominionist organization the National Christian Charitable Foundation (NCCF).

In 2012, the National Christian Charitable Foundation had more than $1.22 billion in assets under management in donor-advised funds that offered “innovative, tax-smart solutions to help simplify giving, multiply impact, and glorify God.” Since 1982 NCCF grants totaling $4.3 billion funded a wide range of religious causes, including some very near and dear to the Koch brothers, such as climate science denial, taxpayer funded “voucher” charter schools, promoting free markets (deregulation), and pro-life advocacy. The Alliance Defending Freedom is a national Christian organization the group’s website claims intends to “spread the Gospel by transforming the legal system and advocating for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family;” four major Dominionist objectives. The National Christian Charitable Foundation’s primary goal is the same as Hobby Lobby’s owners; push an extreme right-wing Christian agenda that allows businesses to use a distorted interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause to discriminate against gays and deny their employees contraceptives and disregard any law their “free exercise of religion” deems is contrary to their bastardized version of Christianity. The Koch brothers support Hobby Lobby to bolster their bona fides with evangelicals and they will celebrate a ruling for Hobby Lobby that will complete the corporate personhood designation the oil magnates need to disregard federal laws with impunity. A High Court ruling for corporate religious personhood will be the corporate world’s ideal “conscience clause” protection to ignore laws and statutes that violate their concept of free enterprise including paying minimum wage, flouting federal and state taxes, banning workplace safety measures, and ignoring environmental regulations.

Hobby Lobby’s owners donate heavily to the National Christian Charitable Foundation to ensure its continued effort to test the limits of the legal system’s interpretation of religious freedom is successful and reaches fruition sooner than Dominionists had anticipated. According to Emily Martin, vice president and general counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, “Ideologically, the thing that unites Hobby Lobby’s contraception case and Arizona’s SB 1062 is an attempt to use religious exercise as a sword to impose religious belief on others, even if it harms others, which would be a radical expansion of free exercise law.” Martin is right, of course, but it appears she does not understand that harming others under a radically expanded “free exercise” interpretation is, like harsh Sharia Law, the goal of Christian Dominionists who intend to use the threat of harm to control the population.

The Center for Arizona Policy (SB 1062) supported by Hobby Lobby through the NCCF said the group’s primary focus is making certain that governmental laws cannot force people to violate their faith,” and a statement on the group’s website boasts they pushed 123 measures that have been signed into law including mandating intrusive ultrasounds (rape by medical instrument) for women seeking abortion service that has nothing whatsoever to do with a government law “forcing people to violate their faith.” It has everything to do with Dominionists forcing their Christian beliefs on the entire population that is a claim Christians say is the goal of Muslims imposing Sharia Law on Islamic nations.  

Hobby Lobby’s owners are much more invested in using a Supreme Court ruling in favor of corporate personhood’s “religious freedom” than just dominating women and gays according to their so-called Christian faith. Barbara Green lied when she said Hobby Lobby is not attempting to meddle in women’s decision to use contraception, and the company’s tens-of-millions of dollars in donations to Christian groups to “spread the Gospel by transforming the legal system” is proof that a nation under the Christian version of Sharia Law is their primary goal. It is tragic that Americans are unaware of the impending doom a High Court ruling for Hobby Lobby will wreak on democracy, because not only will Americans be at the mercy of corporations and businesses run by evangelical fanatics, the Koch brothers will use expanded corporate religious personhood ruling to destroy what is left of America’s fragile democracy.

Dominionists have panted for a legal precedent to use the Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom to impose theocracy on Americans for twenty years. Coupled with Hobby Lobby’s millions of dollars to transform the legal system to spread the gospel and the Koch brothers’ support for corporate religious personhood, Christianity’s version of Sharia Law in America is likely much closer than even cynical secular humanists and freedom from religion advocates feared possible. The only question yet remaining is exactly what Christians will call their version of Sharia Law when it replaces the Constitution as the law of the land because that is the objective of Hobby Lobby’s Dominionist owners and they are spending tens-of-millions of tax deductible  donations to see their goal reach fruition.


Copyright PoliticusUSA LLC 2008-2023