Hobby Lobby is facing new boycott threats over a photo of a store display urging customers to ‘Vote Trump’

Shoppers are once again calling for a boycott of Hobby Lobby, the arts-and-crafts company that is no stranger to controversy. The growing #BoycottHobbyLobby effort began picking up steam on social media on Sunday in response to a now-viral tweet shared by a user named Kari Brekke. In the tweet, which has more than 33,000 likes and more than 10,000 retweets, Brekke shared an image with the caption, “In a Hobby Lobby,” showing a display of decorative letters arranged to read “USA Vote Trump“.

Brekke did not take the photo, but rather pulled it from a public post shared in a national Facebook group for the Lincoln Project, an organization started by former Republicans in 2019 dedicated to preventing President Donald Trump’s reelection. Brekke did not have any additional information regarding who may have arranged the display nor where the photo was taken. Some other Twitter users pointed out that the letters would be free for customers to move around, in other words, a customer rather than an employee may be behind the display.

Calls to boycott Hobby Lobby were swift on Twitter, as users shared the image with the hashtag #BoycottHobbyLobby. The blowback is just the latest in a smattering of outcries against Hobby Lobby in the past decade. In 2012, Hobby Lobby faced widespread scrutiny for its efforts to deny access to contraceptives for employees. A high-profile Supreme Court case subsequently ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby’s right to withhold reproductive benefits, determining that private companies were allowed to be exempt from the law on the basis of religious preferences.

Hobby Lobby has also been the subject of boycotts in response to anti-Semitic and homophobic incidents.

In 2013, Hobby Lobby’s conservative Christian CEO and founder David Green apologized in a formal statement to the Anti-Defamation League after an employee told a customer the store did not carry products for Jewish holidays because it “does not cater to your people.” Green has also been reported to be a massive donor to the National Christian Foundation, an organization that promotes anti-LGBTQ efforts. Hobby Lobby drew additional ire this year when it illegally reopened stores in states with stay-at-home mandates calling for the closure of nonessential businesses to prevent the spread of the covid.

By April 2020, Hobby Lobby moved to temporarily close all stores and furlough employees after several spoke out that they feared for their lives by being forced to continue working.