Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Holier Than Thou Hobby Lobby Illegally Acquired Artifacts

But They Thought It Was Okay Because They are Devout and Pious

The Hobby Lobby company is famous for wanting to control their employees private sex lives and for getting Supreme Court decision to allow them to do so.  They also bought a large number of religious artifacts, illegally as it turns out.

Prosecutors said in the complaint that Hobby Lobby, whose evangelical Christian owners have long maintained an interest in the biblical Middle East, began in 2009 to assemble a collection of cultural artifacts from the Fertile Crescent. The company went so far as to send its president and an antiquities consultant to the United Arab Emirates to inspect a large number of rare cuneiform tablets — traditional clay slabs with wedge-shaped writing that originated in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago.
In 2010, as a deal for the tablets was being struck, an expert on cultural property law who had been hired by Hobby Lobby warned company executives that the artifacts might have been looted from historical sites in Iraq, and that a failing to determine their heritage could break the law.
And having been caught, they had a ready excuse.

Mr. Green said that Hobby Lobby’s collection of historical Bibles and artifacts like the tablets was “consistent with the company’s mission and passion for the Bible.” He added that the company had planned to display the items it bought in various museums and public institutions.
As for the smuggling allegations, Mr. Green said in the statement that Hobby Lobby was “new to the world of acquiring these items, and did not fully appreciate the complexities of the acquisitions process.” He added that “regrettable mistakes” were made and that he should have “exercised more oversight.”

Our Bible says ‘thou shall not steal” but maybe Hobby Lobby has a Bible that says it’s okay if you are religious.  Like it’s okay if you are religious to keep family planning services away from  your employees just because you the employer don’t believe they are moral.

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