Good Old-Fashioned Religious Bigotry; "Hobby Lobby" Edition

Hobby Lobby, as store that sells the same sort of crafting crap that you can buy everywhere else, opened a store in Marlboro, NJ. That town has a significant population of Jews.

So a local man went into the store and asked if they have Hannukah decorations. The store clerk said they didn't carry any. When asked why, the clerk gave this explanation:

"We don't cater to you people."

So the man called the store manager. In short the explanation was that the owner of the company, a thumper named Steve Green, is a bigoted asswipe who doesn't recognize anyone else's holidays. He called corporate in Oklahoma and was told much the same thing.

So a store that sells holiday decorations opens up in an area with a significant Jewish population and doesn't carry Hannukah kitsch? The only two possible explanations are "bigoted" and "stupid".

I'm going with "bigoted". They are a large chain, they surely do market research before opening new stores. They could not have failed to note the demographics of the town and the surrounding area. For a store of that nature, opening in the New York City metropolitan area and ignoring Jewish holidays is like opening a hardware store in Vermont and not stocking snow shovels- it's an inconceivable mistake.

One of the basic things in retail is to find out what customers want or need and sell it to them. I don't think Hobby Lobby is that stupid. But I do think they may be that bigoted. Good old-fashioned anti-Semitism never seems to go completely out of style in some circles.

There are lots of other stores that sell the same crap and they are happy to cater to Jewish customers.

I'll go there.