Hobby Lobby President Steve Green defended his firm’s litigation against the Obamacare HHS contraceptive/abortifacient mandate in remarks to the Religion Newswriters Association (RNA) on September 26.
“We didn’t pick the fight,” Green explained. “We never imagined we’d sue our own government. We love our country. But the mandate requires us to become abortion providers, which goes against our conscience.”
Green said his firm would “not provide abortive drugs for free and won’t prevent employees from accessing those drugs.”
As the lawsuit heads toward the U.S. Supreme Court, he said his firm is not slowing and is opening 37 new stores this year, hoping to open 70 next year.
Green was speaking to RNA in Austin, Texas about his family’s plans to open a Bible museum in Washington, DC to house and display 40,000 biblical artifacts.
“There’s probably nothing else like this book that can unite us,” Green said, noting that 94 percent of American households have a Bible.
Green said the museum’s purpose is not to advocate a particular perspective: “If you hear we’re interested in imposing our faith, that’s a false accusation.” He said “religious freedom finds its roots in this book,” which asserts that “God gave us choice.”
“Because this country has followed the principles of this book that’s why this country has been a success,” Green said.
Green emphasized the museum’s educational purpose. “We’re looking for good scholarship,” he said. “We’re not looking to embellish the record.”
Preceding Green’s talk were panels on religious freedom. The Rev. Thomas Nairn of the Catholic Health Association said his group differed with the Catholic bishops over compliance with the HHS mandate by distinguishing between a “mandate to perform versus a mandate to facilitate others.” He recognized the threat of a “camel’s nose in the tent.” But he cited the “principle of cooperation with evil,” which helps judge that the HHS rule “provides enough distance” from an immoral act.
Rev. Green emphasized his group affirms Catholic teaching, saying, “We don’t see contraceptives as services to begin with.” He dissented from “Catholic intellectuals” like Princeton’s Robert George who believe the HHS mandate shows society’s “strong feeling of antipathy against Catholicism.” But he warily recalled Richard Neuhaus’s question whether religious liberty means “freedom of or from religion.”
On a separate panel, Eric Teetsel of the Manhattan Declaration recalled that “religious freedom is “all too uncommon” in history, defining it as the “right to ask ultimate questions and to live in light of the answers to those questions.” He asked, “If the state can tell you what to believe…what can it not do?”
In a panel on the “myth of Sharia law,” Mark Pfeiffer of Baptist University of the Americas dismissed claims that U.S. courts are susceptible to encoding Islamic law. He also insisted most Muslims globally don’t want most aspects of Sharia. Hina Azam of the University of Texas, herself Muslim, agreed with her co-panelist about Sharia in American courts. But she warned that in some countries “very violent, miscogynistic forms of Islam are being imposed.”
Over 100 religion journalists and others attended the panel talks, which met in the Texas State Capitol.
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