New Hobby Lobby in Burbank draws protesters over recent Supreme Court ruling

Burbank >> One protester brought a hanger. Another dressed like a vagina. And dozens carried signs to demand that the U.S. government stop the war on women.

The graphic costumes, props and banners were part of a demonstration on Monday of about 50 people who marched and chanted outside of a new Hobby Lobby store in Burbank. Protesters said they were angry with last week’s Supreme Court ruling that will allow some for-profit companies with strong religious beliefs such as Hobby Lobby to opt out of covering birth control under the Affordable Care Act.

The decision, many said, gives corporations too much power on deciding what women employees can and can’t do with their bodies and it throws reproduction rights far back into the past. Protesters called on customers entering the store to turn around and shop elsewhere.

“It’s very obvious that the five males on the Supreme Court want to return to a time when women were barefoot and pregnant,” said Lauren Steiner, who organized the demonstration, and who dressed in pink to mimic a vagina.

In a 5-4 vote handed down last week, the court’s conservative justices decided that the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act gave employers the right to withhold certain birth control methods from insurance coverage. Their decision was a result of a lawsuit brought by Hobby Lobby, an Oklahoma City-based company with more than 500 stores nationwide. The Green family, which founded the store, said they disagreed with a mandate by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that requires employers to provide contraception in the company’s health insurance plan. The Green family said parts of the mandate contradicted their religious convictions, especially providing what they say are four potentially life-terminating drugs and devices.

Monday’s protest by women’s groups and their male supporters happened at the same time Hobby Lobby held an afternoon grand opening in Burbank, where an Orchard Supply Hardware store once stood. Inside the new Hobby Lobby, which was filled with neatly supplied shelves, corporate manager Jackie Chavez led the staff with a prayer before officially opening the store.

Burbank Mayor David Gordon, who attended the grand opening, said he was aware of some of the issues surrounding Hobby Lobby, but not enough to make a statement about the controversial decision that surrounds the business. He said he was at the grand opening as part of his mayoral duties.

“I routinely welcome new businesses to Burbank,” he said.

Other stores are set to open in West Covina and Oxnard.

Chavez said the company would issue no statement on Monday’s protest. An attorney for Hobby Lobby said last week that the Supreme Court’s decision reaffirmed religious freedom in America.

“The Supreme Court recognized that Americans do not lose their religious freedom when they run a family business,” said Lori Windham, Senior Counsel for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and counsel for Hobby Lobby. “This ruling will protect people of all faiths.” But protester Patty Koehnen, 61, of North Hollywood, said while there are those who say the Supreme Court’s decision is a narrow one, it still could have an unexpected impact. What if a boss, she said, doesn’t believe in vaccines, she asked.

She carried a sign that read: “Your boss’s superstition trumps your doctor’s prescription.”

“If we don’t stop and protest and fight for our rights which are being taken away, then apathy will settle in,” she said.

But Sandy Roberts, who was visiting Burbank while doing missionary work in the area and who had finished shopping at the store, said she supported the business.

“I think they are overreacting,” she said of the protesters. “I don’t think this will stop shoppers.”