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Letter: It’s about rights, not hypocrisy

It’s about rights, not hypocrisy

In her latest column, Melanie Sturm defends Hobby Lobby’s owners against the government (“Who’s imposing their values on whom?”, April 10, The Aspen Times). She takes their side, as they fight the recent mandate to provide certain forms of birth control in their employee health plan. She is certainly right to do this. But she shouldn’t have to.

It should be plain to all that Hobby Lobby’s struggle is not merely their own, but ours as well. These folks stand for the universal right we all demand to enjoy, to obey our consciences free of the state’s unwarranted interference.



I am therefore dismayed that so many, including Patricia Crawford (in her letter of April 14), take the government’s side. But I am not surprised to notice no real argument in anything she says. Rather she relies on the tactic, long discredited, of distraction by personal attack. Hey look, she announces — those Hobby Lobby people are hypocrites!

In answer to Ms. Crawford, I don’t give a darn about Hobby Lobby’s hypocrisy, real or imagined. That is not my concern. It is not your concern. And it is certainly not the government’s concern. If freedom of conscience were meant only for those of unquestioned virtue, then none of us would have it.




People, stay focused. It ain’t about Hobby Lobby. The cause in this health-care fight, as Melanie Sturm so eloquently shows, is to preserve basic human rights for everyone.

Chris King

Aspen