Mike Huckabee Promotes Hobby Lobby Appreciation Day Jan. 5 to Fight HHS Mandate
Months after galvanizing a huge turnout at Chick-fil-A restaurants in support of the owners' stance on biblical marriage, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is at it again – this time promoting a Hobby Lobby Appreciation Day, Jan. 5, to support the Christian owners' fight against the Obama administration's HHS mandate.
On Thursday, Huckabee announced his support of the grassroots event to shop at Hobby Lobby stores on Jan. 5, 2013, on his public Facebook page and his website.
"They are having to fight in court for the most basic American rights of freedom of religion and freedom of speech," wrote Huckabee. "The Obama administration insists that companies like Hobby Lobby bow their knees to the God of government health care mandates, even when those mandates are a clear and direct contradiction to their personal beliefs of faith."
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Starting this year, Hobby Lobby, a crafts retailer owned by David Green and his family, was set to incur $1.3 million in fines each day from the Obama administration for not complying with the contraception mandate, which requires the crafts retailer to pay for types of birth control that the owners feel violate their religious beliefs.
The company, which has 500 stores in over 40 states with over 13,000 full-time employees, has filed a lawsuit challenging the mandate. In December, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor denied Hobby Lobby's emergency request to block enforcement of the mandate.
Huckabee added: "The Hobby Lobby company has resisted the demands of the government to abandon their principles to 'comply' with dictates from the Health and Human Services Department. It's one more way in which an overreaching federal government seeks to violate the conscience and Constitutional rights of American citizens in the name of 'what's best for us.'"
As of Friday afternoon, over 37,000 people on Facebook have already confirmed their participation in Hobby Lobby Appreciation Day.
Event organizer Joe Grabowski, who started "Standing With Hobby Lobby" Facebook event page (http://StandingWithHobbyLobby.com), told The Christian Post that he hopes "the numbers of support on Saturday will at least send a message to the Obama Administration and our other elected officials - as well as, hopefully, to the Justices on the bench waiting to hear this case."
He said he was inspired by Huckabee's Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.
"I sent a message to Mike Huckabee on his Facebook page, knowing of his strong moral leadership and his brave stance on issues like this in the past, and to my great pleasure and surprise he picked it up!"
According to The Becket Fund's website, the group representing the Hobby Lobby's suit, the Green family has no objection to providing his employees with preventative contraception, but they object to paying for two specific "abortion-inducing" drugs, known as Plan B and Ella, or the so-called morning-after pill and the week-after pill.
The Becket Fund, which representing Hobby Lobby's lawsuit, declined to comment on Hobby Lobby Appreciation Day.
