Stephan: This report is so revealing. It is a tale of hypocrisy, absence of moral values, and pious self-righteousness. Just to remind you Hobby Lobby is the big box retailer owned by a family that went to court, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court, proposing that a corporation should not have to cover the cost of an employee's contraception choice. The conservative court ruled for them saying closely held for-profit corporations need not have to pay for things to which the owners had a religious objection. In my view, it is a major breach of the wall between church and state. But to return to the report.
We don't want to pay for contraception but we're down with buying looted antiquities stolen from a war ravaged country where hundreds of thousands died, and whole cities were ravaged, and left in rubble. Many of these objects were almost certainly taken and sold by ISIS.
Anyone buying in the antiquities market knows that anything from Iraq is suspect, its provenance in question. Buying at the scale the Greens were buying, and through agents; their apology is absurd.
Could we all please just stop buying anything from Hobby Lobby.
Credit: U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York
The arts-and-crafts chain Hobby Lobby will pay $3 million to settle a federal case over smuggled Iraqi antiquities it bought to demonstrate its “passion for the Bible.”
The Oklahoma-based retailer also agreed to forfeit thousands of clay artifacts it bought in 2010 — an acquisition that prosecutors said was “fraught with red flags” the company didn’t heed.
n a statement, Hobby Lobby President Steve Green acknowledged “regrettable mistakes” that he chalked up to inexperience.
“We should have exercised more oversight and carefully questioned how the acquisitions were handled,” Green said, adding that the firm fully cooperated with the investigation by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Hobby Lobby is perhaps best known for its Supreme Court victory in a 2014 religious freedom case over contraception. The family that owns the company is also bankrolling a $500 million Museum of the Bible slated to open in Washington in the fall.
In 2009, the company decided to amass a collection of books and […]