Does Your Organic Food Company Stand With Hobby Lobby?
Credit: salon.com
July 2, 2014

So the "organic way" is to keep dropping babies, live in poverty and die young -- right, Michael Potter? Talk about misunderstanding your core customers! Women (who tend to do the food shopping) are boiling mad and letting Eden Foods know they won't be buying any more of their products. Via Grist:

Like Hobby Lobby, Eden Foods sued the Obama administration to try to get out of providing contraceptive coverage for its employees. Eden Foods is a Michigan-based business that bills itself as “the oldest natural and organic food company in North America.”

It is solely owned by Michael Potter, a Catholic who refers to birth control pills as “lifestyle drugs” and likes to whine about “unconstitutional government overreach.” (More crazy quotes from him below.)

In Eden Foods Inc. v. Kathleen Sebelius, filed in federal court in March of 2013, the company claimed its religious freedom was being violated by the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that employee health insurance cover birth control. The suit argued that “contraception or abortifacients … almost always involve immoral and unnatural practices.” In October, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided against Eden Foods, ruling that a for-profit company cannot exercise religion.

But then, on June 30, the Supreme Court ruled in the Hobby Lobby case that family-owned, “closely held” companies can use religion as an excuse to flout the birth control mandate. Eden Foods is one of a few dozen “closely held” for-profit companies that have filed suit over the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. On July 1, the Supreme Court ordered the 6th Circuit Court to reconsider its decision against Eden Foods and another plaintiff with a similar case.

On its website, Eden Foods talks up its commitment to organic and local farming, social responsibility, and even the LEED green-building standards. “One of our founding principles is sustainability,” says the company’s marketing director, Sue Becker. “It guides us today.” But it’s a sad, desiccated version of sustainability that would deny women the ability to decide how many children to have, or whether to have children at all.

Just in case you think Michael Potter was somehow misunderstood:

He told The Daily Telegram of Adrian, Mich., that he’s “grateful” for the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling. And, just in case there’s any confusion about where he stands, he called President Obama a “dictator” who’s trying to take away citizens’ rights.

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