Hobby Lobby CEO Says He Supported Trump 'When I Didn't Have a Better Choice'
The CEO of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. recently stated that he came to support Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump last year "when I didn't have a better choice."
David Green, CEO of the Oklahoma-based Christian crafts store chain, said in an interview with Neil Cavuto of Fox Business Channel on Tuesday that he did not support the Trump campaign at first.
"I thought I had a better choice, but when I didn't have a better choice, and I had two choices, I knew there was only one that I felt like we would continue to have religious liberties," said Green.
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"That was the issue, without any question for us. We want to operate our company and our lives with religious liberties."
Green also told Cavuto that he approved of President Trump's decision to nominate Judge Neil Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court.
"We're hoping that we have more religious liberties, because it seems as though they're eroding," added Green. "That's why we're glad we have a new Supreme Court Justice that we think will be on the side of religious liberties."
"Obviously, we were in [Trump's] court at that time. We were very pleased with that decision that Donald made."
In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Hobby Lobby should not be forced to provide employee health care coverage for four types of abortion-inducing drugs.
In the majority opinion, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, the high court concluded that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act applied to closely held businesses whose owners held a religious objection to the HHS mandate.
"The Government has failed to satisfy RFRA's least-restrictive means standard. HHS has not shown that it lacks other means of achieving its desired goal without imposing a substantial burden on the exercise of religion," wrote Justice Alito.
The decision also stressed that it only concerned the HHS mandate and not other possible insurance coverage issues, like vaccinations or blood transfusions.
Alito was joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, and the late Antonin Scalia. Dissents came from Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan.
Green's comments come right around the time of the release of his memoir, Giving It All Away...and Getting It All Back Again: The Way of Living Generously.
"Green tells the story of caring for the small things and starting Hobby Lobby in their garage. He shares the difference between the worlds of 'having and hoarding' and a world of 'giving and generosity,' the principle of working for God and not for men, and that now is not too soon to consider what you want your legacy to be," noted the book's Amazon description.
"As proof of how living by those principles can change your life, Green shares that when Hobby Lobby came close to bankruptcy in 1986 and when the Supreme Court challenged the Hobby Lobby's right to life beliefs in 2014, the company emerged with its integrity intact."
