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Jessica Quirk, the founder of What I Wore, a lifestyle blog that caught the early wave of outfit blogging popularity and has remained on top since, just threw down a major Hobby Lobby gauntlet. The post was for DIY American Flag jean shorts. Kind of your normal cutesy lifestyle blog activity. The article made no mention of Hobby Lobby or the recent Supreme Court ruling. But Quirk's Facebook post was captioned simply:
It's a great time of year for this patriotic DIY, just don't shop at Hobby Lobby for the supplies.Oh boy. The comments started with, "Way to politicize your page, I like following because of the cute outfits you put together but now I'm going to unfollow." It has 51 likes right now. Jessica responded, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out. I'm just as entitled to share my beliefs as anyone else, especially on my own Facebook page." That has 162 likes.
Then there was this comment from another user, "I just think it was unnecessary to voice your political beliefs. But it is your page, so do what you want, but be prepared for the fall out. However, your lack of professionalism is very disappointing." 24 likes. Which got the response, "Whoa whoa whoa. I can't voice my political beliefs, but a major corporation can voice theirs?" 80 likes.
She keeps up the discussion, answering almost every positive and negative comment. One commentor said, "Stick to fashion and leave your political opinions to yourself. Otherwise, start a political blog. We don't care about your liberal agenda. Unfollowing." To which she said, "I've tweeted and posted about my political beliefs ever since I started blogging and won't be stopping anytime soon. If you took the time to read through the many intelligent comments on this thread (even if they're different from your own), you'd see that people actually DO care about their health care rights on both sides of the argument." And this voice of support, "I am such a fan of yours, I just hate to see anyone give you a hard time," received this reply: "What I think is actually great about this is that people are (hopefully) reading more into our political process, the actual case, the implications for personal freedoms and getting heated about it!"
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