A host of governors, CEOs and church leaders call Indiana’s new religious freedom law a backdoor opening to anti-gay discrimination, but Americans appear more divided on whether a wedding-related business should have the right to turn away a gay customer.
The law, which critics say would allow owners of small businesses to invoke their faith to refuse service to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) customers, applies most apparently to wedding vendors who cite their faith in opposing same-sex “marriage.”
Where is the American public on this debate? It depends on how the question is asked.
An Associated Press poll found that 57 percent of Americans believe a wedding-related business should have the right to refuse service to a gay couple on religious grounds, as opposed to nearly 4 in 10 Americans (39 percent) who said that religious exemption — which Indiana’s new law explicitly allows — is wrong.
In addition, 50 percent said local magistrates shouldn’t have to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples if it contradicts their religious beliefs.
Other polls show less sympathy for business owners who support Religious Freedom Restoration Act laws.
A survey on wedding services and gay couples, released September 2014 by the Pew Research Center, found 47 percent of respondents thought it should be legal for businesses to turn away gay couples on religious grounds, compared with 49 percent who said they should be required to accept them as customers.
Change of attitude
But Americans register far different attitudes about service to gay customers when the question does not mention a wedding. Then there is little sympathy for those who would invoke religion to turn away gay customers. A 2014 Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) survey found a mere 16 percent of Americans supporting small-business owners who would turn away a gay customer for religious reasons.
Asking specifically about turning away gay couples headed to the altar does seem to make a difference to Americans, who come out strongly against anti-gay corporate discrimination, said Dan Cox, PRRI’s director of research.
Americans don’t like the government telling people what to do when it comes to religion, Cox said, but they also strongly reject discrimination against gays in the marketplace.
“But when these two values conflict and the question is so narrowly constructed, they may answer it narrowly, and reason that allowing a small subset of businesses to turn away gay customers would not have such sweeping discriminatory effects.”
(RNS)
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