7 ms·

> Is it just me, or does Hobby Lobby seem to go out of their way to remind their customers that their values aren't the same as the customers? Seriously, they s

> Is it just me, or does Hobby Lobby seem to go out of their way to remind their customers that their values aren't the same as the customers? Seriously, they should go out of business. It's probably just you (or more precisely, those like you). It's quite possible that your values are not typical of their customers, or their customers don't care about the values of the owners of the craft store they patronize.

moomin 9y ago
True enough, but I always got the impression their customers would skew liberal. But that might be my liberal assumptions about who does craft projects showing through. :)
- gorkonsine 9y ago
  Oh, no. Hobby Lobby's customers are typically conservative suburban Christians. Liberals with any political awareness at all would know very well of their contraception case at the SCOTUS, and go to Michael's instead. There's no shortage of middle-class evangelical Christians in suburban areas who are perfectly happy to patronize Hobby Lobby and support their political efforts.
  - s73ver 9y ago
    Maybe those people need to be made aware that Hobby Lobby did this. And that it could have contributed to the rise of ISIS.
    - TheGirondin 9y ago
      No one in the US has contributed more the rise of ISIS than Democrats. The current situation in northern Iraq is exactly what was predicted would happen if the US withdrew before the Iraqi government was stable enough. In response, Democrats said that the anti-government AQ forces were "freedom fighters" and said that what happened there was "none of our business." This is the "peace" Democrats wanted.
      - lostlogin 9y ago
        You are taking way too short a view of this. Perhaps invading was the wrong decision. Or was not taking Saddam down earlier in war 1.0 the wrong decision. Or was funding Saddam for years the wrong path? The current situation is a culmination of (at a minimum) decades of failure by many countries.
      - wavefunction 9y ago
        I'm curious what responsibility you lay at the feet of Republicans who invaded and destabilized Iraq for manufactured reasons?
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > No one in the US has contributed more the rise of ISIS than Democrats The invasion of Iraq and the bungling of early phases of the occupation are the main reason AQI, as such, existed and began the process by which it metastasized into ISIS. While some Democrats do near some responsibility for that as enablers, they weren't the ones directing the relevant policies.
      - s73ver 9y ago
        How is your extremely biased, partisan attack relevant to the point that Hobby Lobby illegally bought these relics, which quite likely helped fund ISIS?
  - coldpie 9y ago
    I'd say the vast majority of their customers are just people who want crafting supplies and it happens to be the nearest big box store for them. I think a relatively small fraction of the population is as politically aware as you suggest.
    - hplust 9y ago
      The one opportunity I had to go in this store was safely avoided by going to a Michael instead. specifically because I refuse to give them a cent. it is extremely difficult to avoid stores/businesses owned by religious groups. I recently avoided purchasing an item from Yakima due to the coming across the following [0]. In reality businesses like Marriott Hotels and Chic Filet irritate me and I avoid when I can (business uses Marriot for work) if there was a list of athiest or agnostic owned businesses I would likely spend more money at these locations than any others. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcapita#Compliance_with_Sharia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcapita#Compliance_with_Shari...
      - gorkonsine 9y ago
        >I recently avoided purchasing an item from Yakima Luckily, there's a lot of other options there, depending on exactly what product you're looking at. Thule is a very big competitor here, plus there's lots of other smaller name-brands too. But I agree, someone should compile a list of religious-owned companies to avoid, and a list of atheist/agnostic owned companies to choose instead. However, I do have to ask what your beef with Marriott is. I looked through their Wikipedia page and couldn't find anything about them being religious, except for a mention that they include a copy of the Book of Mormon along with the Bible in each room, but that could be just a PR thing (pretty much every hotel in the US has a Bible in each room after all, and they aren't all religious, they're just catering to America's population). The company itself is publicly traded, unlike privately-held Hobby Lobby. The ones that irritate me are ChicFilA and In-and-Out Burger, as they're both overtly Christian. This BTW shows why it's a good idea to, in general, avoid buying from American companies and instead buy from Japanese or western European ones. Japanese ones are probably easily the safest bets, since Japan has an extremely non-religious society, and the Abrahamic religions in particular have almost no representation there. And Japanese companies aren't in bed with Middle Eastern ones.

moomin 9y ago

True enough, but I always got the impression their customers would skew liberal. But that might be my liberal assumptions about who does craft projects showing through. :)

gorkonsine 9y ago
Oh, no. Hobby Lobby's customers are typically conservative suburban Christians. Liberals with any political awareness at all would know very well of their contraception case at the SCOTUS, and go to Michael's instead. There's no shortage of middle-class evangelical Christians in suburban areas who are perfectly happy to patronize Hobby Lobby and support their political efforts.
- s73ver 9y ago
  Maybe those people need to be made aware that Hobby Lobby did this. And that it could have contributed to the rise of ISIS.
  - TheGirondin 9y ago
    No one in the US has contributed more the rise of ISIS than Democrats. The current situation in northern Iraq is exactly what was predicted would happen if the US withdrew before the Iraqi government was stable enough. In response, Democrats said that the anti-government AQ forces were "freedom fighters" and said that what happened there was "none of our business." This is the "peace" Democrats wanted.
    - lostlogin 9y ago
      You are taking way too short a view of this. Perhaps invading was the wrong decision. Or was not taking Saddam down earlier in war 1.0 the wrong decision. Or was funding Saddam for years the wrong path? The current situation is a culmination of (at a minimum) decades of failure by many countries.
    - wavefunction 9y ago
      I'm curious what responsibility you lay at the feet of Republicans who invaded and destabilized Iraq for manufactured reasons?
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > No one in the US has contributed more the rise of ISIS than Democrats The invasion of Iraq and the bungling of early phases of the occupation are the main reason AQI, as such, existed and began the process by which it metastasized into ISIS. While some Democrats do near some responsibility for that as enablers, they weren't the ones directing the relevant policies.
    - s73ver 9y ago
      How is your extremely biased, partisan attack relevant to the point that Hobby Lobby illegally bought these relics, which quite likely helped fund ISIS?
- coldpie 9y ago
  I'd say the vast majority of their customers are just people who want crafting supplies and it happens to be the nearest big box store for them. I think a relatively small fraction of the population is as politically aware as you suggest.
  - hplust 9y ago
    The one opportunity I had to go in this store was safely avoided by going to a Michael instead. specifically because I refuse to give them a cent. it is extremely difficult to avoid stores/businesses owned by religious groups. I recently avoided purchasing an item from Yakima due to the coming across the following [0]. In reality businesses like Marriott Hotels and Chic Filet irritate me and I avoid when I can (business uses Marriot for work) if there was a list of athiest or agnostic owned businesses I would likely spend more money at these locations than any others. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcapita#Compliance_with_Sharia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcapita#Compliance_with_Shari...
    - gorkonsine 9y ago
      >I recently avoided purchasing an item from Yakima Luckily, there's a lot of other options there, depending on exactly what product you're looking at. Thule is a very big competitor here, plus there's lots of other smaller name-brands too. But I agree, someone should compile a list of religious-owned companies to avoid, and a list of atheist/agnostic owned companies to choose instead. However, I do have to ask what your beef with Marriott is. I looked through their Wikipedia page and couldn't find anything about them being religious, except for a mention that they include a copy of the Book of Mormon along with the Bible in each room, but that could be just a PR thing (pretty much every hotel in the US has a Bible in each room after all, and they aren't all religious, they're just catering to America's population). The company itself is publicly traded, unlike privately-held Hobby Lobby. The ones that irritate me are ChicFilA and In-and-Out Burger, as they're both overtly Christian. This BTW shows why it's a good idea to, in general, avoid buying from American companies and instead buy from Japanese or western European ones. Japanese ones are probably easily the safest bets, since Japan has an extremely non-religious society, and the Abrahamic religions in particular have almost no representation there. And Japanese companies aren't in bed with Middle Eastern ones.