Hobby Lobby
Hobby Lobby is a prominent craft supplies store chain in the United States, well-known for its strong Christian values and family-owned management. Founded by David Green in 1972, the company initially sold custom picture frames and has since expanded into a large-scale retailer with over 1,000 locations nationwide and nearly 46,000 employees as of 2024. Hobby Lobby gained significant media attention in 2014 due to the Supreme Court case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which ruled that closely held corporations could be exempt from providing certain contraceptives due to religious objections, a decision that sparked polarized opinions about the intersection of corporate rights and religious freedom.
The Green family, who control the majority of the company, actively integrates their religious beliefs into the business model, notably closing stores on Sundays and offering wages above the national minimum. Additionally, the family has made substantial donations to evangelical causes and funded a large-scale Bible museum, further emphasizing their commitment to their faith. Despite its successes, Hobby Lobby has faced controversies, including accusations of acquiring smuggled antiquities for its museum, which resulted in a settlement and the return of the items to Iraq. Overall, Hobby Lobby represents a unique blend of retail business and religious advocacy, making it a subject of interest for diverse audiences.
Hobby Lobby
Hobby Lobby is a craft supplies store chain in the United States. The franchise is most prevalent in Southern states. The Green family, which controls a majority of the corporation's stock, runs Hobby Lobby according to its religious beliefs. In 2014, Hobby Lobby was a source of controversy when it became the focus of the Supreme Court case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. After a lengthy debate, the Supreme Court ruled that certain corporations were exempt from providing government-mandated contraceptives to their employees through health insurance, a decision with significant implications.
The History of Hobby Lobby
David Green founded Greco Products, in 1972 with a $600 loan. Hobby Lobby developed as an offshoot of this business. In the beginning, the business sold only custom picture frames, and the Greens ran the business as a family. They came together in the evenings to build picture frames in the family home's garage. As sales slowly rose, the business moved first to a three-hundred-square-foot retail location and soon after to a one-thousand-square-foot retail location. By 1975, sales had reached $750,000, and Green began expanding with new stores.
At this time the business sold large appliances, luggage, and art prints. When sales plummeted in the early 1980s, Green stripped much of this inventory from his stores. Hobby Lobby took on its modern form, becoming a large-scale art supply store. By 1986, the corporation had returned to profitability.
Hobby Lobby grew steadily throughout the following decades, quickly becoming a giant in its field. By 2014, Hobby Lobby maintained more than 525 retail locations nationwide and its payroll accounted for more than 16,000 full-time and more than 12,000 part-time employees. Growth continued even after the controversial Supreme Court case; by 2024 the company reported operating over 1,001 stores with approximately 46,000 employees across forty-eight states.
Hobby Lobby has been praised for paying its retail workers significantly more than the federally mandated minimum wage. In 2013, for example, the company raised its wage for full-time employees at Hobby Lobby to a minimum of $14 per hour and its starting wage for part-time employees to $9.50 per hour, both above the national minimum wage then at $7.25 per hour. Additionally, almost all employees were awarded annual raises. In 2022, the company again raised the minimum wage to $18.50 per hour for full-time employees. Green explained these business decisions, stating that Hobby Lobby wished to show that it valued its employees and that employee retention was important to the Green family.
The Green Family
The son of a poor preacher, company founder and CEO David Green was devoutly Christian. He became well known for using the billions of dollars he earned through Hobby Lobby to become one of the largest donors to evangelical causes in the world. Green purchased many properties for religious organizations and paid for religious advertisements in national newspapers. He and his family, including his son a Hobby Lobby president Steve Green, also donated tens of millions of dollars to religious colleges. Perhaps most notably, the Green family funded the creation of a large-scale Bible museum in Washington, DC. The family purchased biblical artifacts collectively valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, including the oldest-known copy of the New Testament, to display in the museum.
The close-knit family controlled a majority share of Hobby Lobby's stock. Because of this control, the Greens were able to run Hobby Lobby as a religious corporation. They followed a policy of closing all Hobby Lobby stores on Sundays, a prime retail day, to allow their employees the traditional Christian day of worship. Additionally, they limited all Hobby Lobby locations to sixty-six hours of operation weekly so their employees could spend more time with their families.
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby
In 2011, the United States Department of Health and Human Services revised its rules to require that the vast majority of health insurance policies completely cover all US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved contraceptives for women. Though Hobby Lobby complied with the majority of the mandate, the company refused to provide certain forms of contraception the Greens said caused abortions. The Greens called these forms of birth control religiously immoral. When the federal government threatened severe fines, Hobby Lobby sued, claiming that the government was infringing on the Greens' religious freedom.
Many people sided with Hobby Lobby, arguing that no one should be forced to pay for something they find religiously objectionable. Others argued that Hobby Lobby is a corporation, not a person, and thus cannot have a religion. They asserted corporations do not have the same constitutional protections as individuals. In 2013, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, called Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.
In 2014 in a 5–4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby. The majority opinion stated that closely held corporations, meaning a corporation in which a small number of people own a very large percentage of the corporation, could be considered to share the religious beliefs of its owners. In these circumstances, the corporation itself could be considered exempt from federal law for religious reasons. Because the Green family owns a very large percentage of Hobby Lobby, the corporation qualifies as religious. Thus, Hobby Lobby cannot be forced to provide certain types of contraception to its employees.
The Supreme Court's decision was just as polarizing as the case itself. Advocates of the decision praised it as a victory for religious freedom, while critics raised concerns that the ruling could be abused in the future. Critics, including several Supreme Court justices, speculated that other closely held corporations could take advantage of the ruling to gain exemption from many federal laws.
Smuggling Scandal
The controversy around Hobby Lobby's high-profile Supreme Court victory did not harm the company, as it continued to thrive. However, it was not the only contentious issue the Green family faced. In 2017, a civil complaint was filed against the company, alleging that among the antiquities it had collected for the biblical museum it sponsored were clay tablets that had been looted in Iraq and smuggled into the United States. According to the prosecutors, in 2010 Hobby Lobby purchased over 5,500 artifacts from a dealer for $1.6 million despite warnings from experts about the items' provenance. The artifacts, including cuneiform tablets and other clay works, were falsely labeled as tile samples from Turkey for shipment into the United States.
The Green family announced it worked with federal investigators as the case came to light. Soon after the official complaint was filed, Hobby Lobby agreed to settle by returning the artifacts and paying a fine of $3 million. In May 2018 the clay tablets were officially repatriated to Iraq.
Bibliography
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Gerstein, Josh and Haberkorn, Jennifer. "SCOTUS Sides with Hobby Lobby on Birth Control."Politico, 30 Jun. 2014, www.politico.com/story/2014/06/supreme-court-hobby-lobby-decision-contraception-mandate-108429.html. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.
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"Hobby Lobby Media Information and Fact Sheet." The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. http://www.becketfund.org/hobbylobbyfactsheet/
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Rappeport, Alan. "Family behind Hobby Lobby Has New Project: Bible Museum." The New York Times, 16 Jul. 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/07/17/us/politics/family-that-owns-hobby-lobby-plans-bible-museum-in-washington.html?‗r=0. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.
Wilson, Scott. "What You Need to Know about the Hobby Lobby Billionaires." ABC News, 30 Jun. 2014, abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/06/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-hobby-lobby-billionaires/. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.