Petition delivered by Oklahoma City clergyman protests Hobby Lobby lawsuit

The Rev. Lance Schmitz, a Church of the Nazarene preacher, said the petition he gave to a Hobby Lobby employee Thursday has more than 80,000 signatures of people concerned that the retailer is placing women's health care at risk by trying to strike down the targeted U.S. Health and Human Services mandate.

The mandate requires health coverage for women to include free preventive services such as contraception, including IUDs and the morning after pill.

Churches and other nonprofit religious organizations are exempted on the basis of religious objections, but insurance companies are not.

Hobby Lobby, being self-insured, apparently is not exempt.

Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, based in Washington, D.C., said the petition, launched by national organizations Faithful America and UltraViolet, is based on misinformation.

He said Hobby Lobby's lawsuit, filed Sept. 12, does not have anything to do with the contraception requirement, but rather a requirement that employers must pay for abortion-inducing drugs. The company's lawsuit claims that the mandate, which is part of the Affordable Care Act adopted in 2010, violates business owners' freedoms of religion and speech.

“We basically want to push back against the notion that this is about birth control. It's really not,” Duncan said.

Schmitz, 34, who said he was acting on his personal beliefs, not the Church of the Nazarene denomination, tried to deliver the petition Thursday at Hobby Lobby's headquarters at 7707 SW 44, but he said he was asked to leave the premises.