Often attorneys will tell clients to do certain things, or make certain claims in order to "set up" a case to test the constitutionality of a law.

Hate to burst a bubble for all of you who believe that lawsuits like reality television is "the real thing" and unscripted.

it is usually a coalition of businesses and attorney's who get together to challenege the constitutionality of a law. They set up their lead clients to do certain things in order to legitimately make certain claims about whatever issues they are going to raise in court.

What they believe, and what those companies actually do has very little bearing on the constitutional arguments being made.

And yea, they are out to nail Obamacare as unconstitutional. Is this news to anyone?

I'm pretty sure most people cannot tell you if a company is held by their retirement plan, or not, with the exception of index funds for which the answer is yes. Do I stop using them to save for retirement because some companies hold positions or sell products with which I disagree? I'd put the tobacco companies at the top of my list, but it's not like I can buy a tobacco free index fund in my 401K.

Does that make me a hypocrite in your opinion?

Yawn. Reminds of first year college debates. Avoid key issues and throw side issues out w/emotion.

Wait a minute. That's today's political environment (and probably last century's as well).

Typically 401K accounts are self managed (The employee decides which funds to invest in.) Hobby Lobby may have input into which funds are availabe within the 401K. There likely wouldn't be much of a choice of investments if they only offered morally responsible funds. The question to be answered is does Hobby Lobby offer any morally responsible funds in the 401K?

This should be simple: one is voluntary, the other isn't.

Ask yourself this question:

What about being told what to do by your government is "American" to you?

(Cue the "two wrongs" people...)

They fund contraceptives with their retirement plan? Does Mother Jones have any editors?

Just took a look at my 401k, main mutual fund currently is an index of 143 different companies. This is just one of many possible funds. I couldn't tell you what half of those companies did based just on the names, let alone what every single product was. The individual fund manager can also buy and sell different stocks on a daily basis, so the 143 might be 150 next month, without me knowing it.

It is an extremely tenuous basis. What it really shows is how deeply media and thoroughly media will dig if it pushes their agenda. But they were completely oblivious to how bad the Obamacare website was until after it came out.

Sorry, Mother Jones if full of it, again. These are mutual funds; mutual funds with big investment companies. How many people know what is in their mutual funds? How many people have mutual funds that are invested in companies they don't like? Probably all of them. This has absolutely no bearing on whether HL should be forced to pay for specific insurance coveraeg.

I would guess that Mother Jones has no idea how these things work since they rely heavily on poorly compensated interns and cheap labor.

My last company had the 401k program setup with Fidelity (and it was a medium-small bank). My current company I think uses Schwab.

There are probably less than 100 companies that have a totally inside the company finance incorporation such as GM having GMAC and GE having GE Capital.

So blaming Hobby Lobby for hiring [401k finance company] that buys contraceptive stocks is like blaming me for buying a Glock because bad guys have used Glocks to commit crimes.

Apples and oranges. It's silly to even compare these two things. Every company will do something with their money that someone will disagree with.

I got chick fil a on my plate and Ben and Jerry's in my freezer. I pay them for their quality products. They can spend their profits as they choose, even if I have personal disagreements... as long as it isn't evil and I'm not forced to support it directly.

Does that make me a hypocrite in your opinion?

Depends MarkD, do you go about in public claiming the use of tobacco is morally wrong and you have/want nothing to do with supporting it?

Or do you think its stupid but if others are stupid enough to use it its none of your business?

If one, yes
If two, no

"Do you KNOW this or are you just guessing?"

I was taking a cheap shot at them because they were one of the liberal publications cited by Vice as badly underpaying their interns (sub minimum wage; telling them to get food stamps, etc.) To see them complain about someone else's business practices bothers me.

heh, I'll bet at this very moment they've directed their mutual funds to divest from those very companies due to this kerfuffle... but here's an important thing:

Church and Dwight. It's a company you may never have heard of. Arm and Hammer? Is a brand. Heard of them? They are owned by C&D.

So is Trojan. It looks like this:

Church and Dwight's brands include:

Aim Toothpaste (acquired in 2003 in the U.S. from Unilever)
Answer
Arm & Hammer
Arm & Hammer Spinbrush (known until 2009 as Crest Spinbrush; acquired in 2006 from Procter & Gamble)
Arrid (acquired in 2001 from Carter-Wallace)
Auro-Dri (acquired in 2008 from Del Pharmaceuticals)
Cameo
Carter's Laxative (originally known as Carter's Little Liver Pills and later as Carter's Little Pills, acquired in 2001 from Carter-Wallace)
Close-Up (licensing rights acquired in 2003 in the U.S. from Unilever)
Delicare
First Response (acquired in 2001 from Carter-Wallace)
Gentle Naturals (acquired in 2008 from Del Pharmaceuticals)
Kaboom, a tile cleaner (through merger in 2006 with Orange Glo International)
Lady's Choice
L'il Critters
Mentadent (acquired in 2003 in the U.S. from Unilever)
Nair (acquired in 2001 from Carter-Wallace)
Nice'n Fluffy (through merger in 2001 with USA Detergents)
Orajel (acquired in 2008 from Del Pharmaceuticals)
Orange Glo (through merger in 2006 with Orange Glo International)
OxiClean (through merger in 2006 with Orange Glo International)
Parsons
Pearl Drops (acquired in 2001 from Carter-Wallace)
Pepsodent (acquired in 2003 in the U.S. from Unilever)
Pepsodent toothpaste
Rain Drops
Rigident
RUB A535
Scrub Free
Sedomy Lite
SnoBol (toilet cleaner)
Trojan Condoms (acquired in 2001 from Carter-Wallace)
Vitafusion
Xtra laundry detergent (through merger in 2001 with USA Detergents)

Now let's say your mutual fund buys shares in C&D...

would you have some person go throught C&D's whole portfolio just to see if you hate their toothpastes? OR if you are against any kind of contraception?

On the upside, divesting from C&D removes you from 70% of the market in them, but you have to go digging to find who owns who.

This whole question is entirely stupid, and looking for hypocrisy like this is also like looking for "sustainable green" companies, when you have NO IDEA who owns who.

H/L doesn't care THAT MUCH about the controception thing, as they DO IN FACT COVER 16 kinds.

They care more that they are being forced to do so by a fundamentally anti American law... and the ONLY STANDING TO SUE is to say it violates their religion.
They HAVE to say that to sue.

Well, THAT's not hypocritical. /sarc

Obviously, they're practicing a sort of Chinese menu Christianity, where they are opposing Obamacare in column A, while giving birth control to retirees (!) in column B.

OK, they're not actually giving retirees birth control -- my mistake -- but they do look hypocritical effectively funding birth control in the 401(k).

I'm sure they could find actual Christian or Catholic investment funds if they were willing to make the effort.

OK, they're not actually giving retirees birth control -- my mistake -- but they do look hypocritical effectively funding birth control in the 401(k). - mpetrie98

Yes, they do look hypocritical because that is the intent of the publication.

The reader is not told who is responsible for making the investment decisions and what alternative investments are available. And as SwissArmyD and others pointed out, the contraceptive producers could be burried within a huge consolidated company which itself is burried in the portfolio of the mutual fund.

So, not only are these needles in a $73 million haystack, $73 million is a drop in the bucket of the billion dollar contraceptive industry.

Sorry for the double cliche, but I am a number guy, not a word guy.

I really don't think this is hypocrisy. I don't expect companies I invest in to share 100% of my values. That they may use the investment for some things that I personally wouldn't do myself doesn't mean I cant diagree with being forced to contradict my values directly.

I'm really surprised how many of you don't know how a 401K works. Company A tells investment house X, "We would like our employees to have a 401K." Investment house X offers company A a 401K plan that has mutual fund choices. It could be 5; it could be 1000. Most of these corporate programs offer 5 to 15 mutual funds. The employees then deposit a percentage of THEIR wages into the 401K account. Sometimes a company does a "match" of a small percentage, say 3 or 6 percent and also, maybe, some profit sharing money. The key here is that the employee, not the employer gets to choose which mutual funds THEIR money is invested in. Also, the mutual fund managers, not the employers, choose what investments are to be in the funds. They could buy stock in a company and that stock could be in the fund for 10 years or 10 minutes. To criticize Hobby Lobby for this would be like criticizing them if one of their employees bought the morning after pill with money from the pay check that they got from Hobby Lobby. (BTW, the upside of the 401K, as opposed to a Roth IRA, is that it invests pre-tax money, so it reduces your current tax liability. The downside is that, unlike a Roth IRA, you have to pay tax on that income as you withdraw it during retirement.)