Hobby Lobby in Mansfield, Ohio (Photo credit: Fan of Retail)

By Tara Culp-Ressler

The Oklahoma-based crafts store Hobby Lobby has won a temporary injunction against Obamacare’s birth control requirement, allowing the for-profit company to withhold contraceptive coverage from its 13,000 employees. Hobby Lobby will be exempted from that rule under the health law until October 1, when the federal government must decide whether to appeal the decision.

Obamacare requires employers to provide a range of gender-specific preventative health services at no additional cost to workers, including several forms of birth control, to help address the fact that women typically have higher out-of-pocket health costs than men do. But Hobby Lobby has been fighting for the right to drop birth control coverage for the past year. The store’s conservative Christian owners say that providing some types of birth control — specifically, emergency contraception — violates their religious beliefs. The craft store chain employs people of all faiths at 556 different stores in 45 states.

Hobby Lobby would have faced significant fines if it had violated Obamacare’s contraception rule. At first, the company decided to pay the fine in exchange for withholding birth control coverage. Then, it began manipulating employees’ health plans in the hopes of avoiding the fines altogether.

Read More Hobby Lobby Wins The Right To Deny Its Workers Birth Control | ThinkProgress.