As the mouthpiece for right wing Christians and the anti-choice movement, Fox News provides full support for Hobby Lobby's objection to the ACA's birth control mandate. In March of this year, the curvy couch anti-choice Christians gave Ken "Blue Dress" Starr an entire segment during which he extolled the Christian values of Hobby Lobby owners who are being forced to provide abortion inducing pills and devices (Big Lie) in violation of their - wait for it - religious freedom. The Five's anti-choice Christians not only cited religious freedom, in their defense of Hobby Lobby, but asserted that any Hobby Lobby employee who needs "abortion pills" (Big Lie) is just a big slut who shouldn't be "subsidized." And in the "fair & balanced" Fox "news" dept, Bill Hemmer provided an unrebutted platform for right wing lawyer Jay Sekulow to spread more misinformation about the case. This morning, he hosted yet another infomerical for Hobby Lobby!
Bill Hemmer (Hey, ladies, he's available but he's also a devout Catholic so no slut pills for you!) reported that a decision is expected, on Monday, on the Hobby Lobby case which "asks whether the federal government can force a private [he emphasized the word] company to provide contraception even if it violated [wait for it] their religious beliefs." He introduced his guest, Hannah Smith, from the Beckett Fund which represents Hobby Lobby, who is confident that they will win their case. Smith was interviewed, by Hemmer, in 2012 when she was representing a Catholic college which had filed suit against the Obama administration over the ACA birth control mandate. During that piece, Hemmer repeated the patented Fox News Big Lie that the ACA covers abortion inducing drugs.
Smith claimed that the SCOTUS judges, during oral argument, seemed "skeptical" of the government's claim that for profit businesses' religious freedom can't "be protected." She claimed that Justice Breyer was "on their side" when, in reality, he said that he "might be open" to the idea of restricting a favorable opinion to only those companies that are "closely held." She speculated that many of the judges "are concerned about government overreach in this case."
Hemmer, very solemnly, asked how "this would change Obamacare" if Hobby Lobby wins. Smith responded that it would provide an "exemption for these people of faith." This would have been an opportunity for Bill to ask if Jehovah's Witnesses business owners could deny blood transfusions to their employees or if a Catholic business owner could deny health benefits to an employee who is in a same sex marriage -but he didn't, he just let her continue to talk. He did, however, work in a very obvious right wing talking point with his comment that the government has already provided lots of exemptions to other companies for a variety of reasons. Not surprisingly, she agreed and expanded on his agitprop talking point by accusing Obama of "refusing" to give an exemption to "these people of faith." Rather than pushing back, Hammer asked her to elaborate on that point. Not surprisingly, she whined about how the most holy Greene's are being treated unfairly.
Hemmer encouraged her to so some more whining about "staggering fines" when he said, very solemnly, that if the case is lost, Hobby Lobby will have to pay a fine. She claimed that these "unprecedented" and "un-American" fines were established in order to "punish" religious businesses. Hemmer sweetly asked if this is "thousands" or "millions" of dollars. (Of course, Hobby Lobby is a million dollar enterprise but nobody mentioned that)
When Hemmer asked Smith why the ACA "accommodation" wouldn't apply to Hobby Lobby, she explained that this applies to non-profits who are currently fighting the accommodation which allows their insurance carrier to foot the bill. She whined about how the accommodation doesn't apply to private companies whose - wait for it - religious liberty isn't a concern for the Obama administration.
Hemmer didn't push back on the notion that for profit businesses have religious rights, a notion that is truly "unprecedented." He didn't ask about the rights of Hobby Lobby workers who don't have the same religious views as the owners. He did, however, provide a nice platform for Hobby Lobby to plead its case. Fox News, fair & balances as always!
But hey. Why should HL let its “religious values” get in the way of profits? I mean, they might have to start buying from places that pay their employees more than $1 a day.