129.7 - Outrage of the Week: Hobby Lobby’s antisemitism

Outrage of the Week: Hobby Lobby’s antisemitism

Now for our other regular feature, the Outrage of the Week.

This week, the target of the mockery and disgust is Hobby Lobby; more particularly, its owner, David Green.

Green is already notorious for suing the government over the Affordable Care Act because he doesn't want to cover birth control for his employees. Green won at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals - remember what I just said about it being one of the most reactionary courts in the country - and the case is going to the Supreme Court.

That could be the Outrage of the Week, but that news isn't from this week so it's not. This is:

Hobby Lobby recently opened a new store in Marlboro, New Jersey and a shopper went in looking for a bar-mitzvah card only to discover there were none. When she asked about it, she was told there wouldn't be any. Why? According to the customer, the answer was: "We don't cater to you people."

Another customer to the same store was surprised to find that even though there already was a lot of Christmas merchandise on display, there was none for Hannukah. Not a single menorah. Not a single dreidel. And there wouldn't be any. That customer called the home office only to be told that Hobby Lobby doesn't have Hannukah on its list of holidays.

A third person, being unwilling to accept those reports of such ugly exchanges without confirmation, called the Marlboro store and asked if it would be stocking any Hannukah merchandise. No. And, it developed, the same answer applied to Passover. Why not? The answer was, quoting, "Because Mr. Green is the owner of the company, he's a Christian, and those are his values."

Those "values," which already included imposing his beliefs on his employees by hindering their access to birth control, now also include some of the crudest antisemitism I have seen outside of the darker corners of the Internet. "We don't cater to you people," indeed.

That really, really, is an outrage.

Sources:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/09/30/1242615/-No-menorahs-at-Hobby-Lobby
http://partisan.blogs.hopelesslypartisan.com/item_15275.htm