Posted on 09/22/2014 6:59:09 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
I wish Pew had provided older numbers to use as a yardstick here. Can’t tell if this has been fairly constant for a few years now or if opinion is starting to move towards gays on public accommodations as well.
The fact that more people support compulsion in the name of antidiscrimination than the right of the business owner to refuse for reasons of conscience is newsy, though.
Say, wasn’t there another splashy poll by a famous pollster on this subject last year? Yep, sure was — Rasmussen asked a similar question in June 2013 and found, no typo, that 85 percent of Americans supported the business owner’s right to refuse. Either there’s been a sea change among the public over the past 15 months or, much more likely, the starkly different results are a product of how the two questions were phrased. Compare Pew’s question above to how Ras put it:
Suppose a Christian wedding photographer has deeply held religious beliefs opposing same-sex marriage. If asked to work a same-sex wedding ceremony, should that wedding photographer have the right to say no?
Not only did they mention that this matter is one of “deeply held” religious beliefs for business owners, which may have increased support vis-a-vis Pew’s blander phrase “for religious reasons,” but Rasmussen built up to that question by asking several other questions related to freedom of association and the right of groups to exclude. The question quoted above was actually the sixth in a sequence of seven; number five, for example, was “Should a gay and lesbian organization on campus be allowed to require that all officers of the club support equal rights for gays and lesbians?” If you say yes to question five, you’re primed to say yes to question six as well for reasons of consistency. That’s a smart tactic for supporters of business owners. State antidiscrimination laws don’t punish discrimination against all groups, only those that are especially vulnerable in the eyes of the state, but emphasizing that all sorts of entities are routinely entitled to exclude those who don’t share their beliefs is a shrewd way to steer people around towards the right to exclude for moral reasons in operating one’s business too.
As for the various subsamples above, the gender gap is noteworthy (if not enormous), as is the racial split. Blacks are sensitive to giving businesses the right to deny service to a disfavored group (at least vis-a-vis marriage), for obvious historical reasons. Hispanic numbers are almost as lopsided as those for blacks. The age split is dramatic, suggesting that as millennials replace elderly voters in the population, public support for requiring businesses to serve gay weddings will solidify decisively. The tilt among Catholics is interesting too, driven partly by the number of Hispanic Catholics but not entirely. Even white Catholics show majority support for forcing business owners to comply.
The very last bit, showing how opinion on this subject correlates with opinion on whether homosexuality is sinful, is more nuanced than you might think:
The public is more convinced today than it was last year that homosexuality is sinful, although support for legalizing gay marriage hasn’t really fallen off. Last year it was 50/43, today it’s 49/41 — although in February of this year, it reached as high as 54 percent. Hmmmm. Was February an outlier or has public support started to cool a bit? Also, although I already knew that Catholics on balance favored legalizing gay marriage (52/35 in this poll), I’m surprised to see that a plurality of them don’t consider homosexuality sinful. Forgive the atheist a possibly stupid question, but isn’t all sexual activity outside marriage regarded as sinful by the church? I can see how Catholics might support legalizing SSM as a matter of civil law so long as the Church isn’t forced to recognize those unions but I’m not sure how gay relations don’t qualify as sinful. Any religious readers want to help me out here?
Exit question: 82 percent of white evangelical Protestants, i.e. the conservative base, see homosexuality as sinful while 56 percent of Hispanic Catholics see it as not a sin. Are we still sticking to the argument that Hispanics are “natural conservative voters” who simply haven’t seen the light yet that the GOP is their natural home?
Ahh. Ok. Thanks. I didn’t know that.
I wanted to post a variation on my post here about moslems being required to serve pork or be charged with discrimination. Just to stir things up.
Seems like a pretty hinky poll. Not that it would entirely surprise me if true. Especially since Americans seem so cowed and spineless nowadays when it comes to the bullying by the PC fascists, always ready to capitulate and give up their freedoms when faced by degenerate media-driven agendas. I used to actually think Americans were too full of grit and independence to fall prey to such things. But that was an earlier generation, an earlier ilk, of Americans. Not the degraded populace we have now.
I’ve been going there for many, many years and was just able to sign in to post about 5 months ago.
Does a lawyer have to offer his services to any client? Even lobbying on behalf of a political cause he personally opposes? NO.
Why the double standard?
Any day now, if the gay population is so huge.
-PJ
Did we think these BS polls weren’t going to back the constantly meddlesome community of homosexuals that should be ‘required’ to M.T.O.B?!
“Some day something like Ebola will fix this.”
Maybe sooner than later. For all of us. Why? Because Americans demand all the wrong things.
And how about all the anti-smoking laws? Do they not discriminate against smokers?
That is much better, but Pew is worded more like a ballot measure would be, and more likely represents how the public would generally answer.
Blacks are sensitive to giving businesses the right to deny service to a disfavored group (at least vis-a-vis marriage), for obvious historical reasons.
What they should have asked was, "If a business owned by black or Jewish people provided services for special functions, such as photography or special cakes or signs, should it be allowed to refuse to provides such for a Klu Klux Klan or another white supremacist celebration?
I think you would see a very different and inconsistent response, vs. "religious reasons."
The tilt among Catholics is interesting too, driven partly by the number of Hispanic Catholics but not entirely. Even white Catholics show majority support for forcing business owners to comply.
Which is consistent with the abundance of other stats from many researchers testifying to the overall liberal fruit of Rome, while if the wording here is to be blamed, then white evangelical Protestants had more discernment with 71% upholding the right of the business to refuse, vs, just 25% disagreeing, while blacks only make up 6% of evangelicals.
In contrast, the percentage for white Caths were 45/53, which is worse than the % for even all Protestants (54/41).
82 percent of white evangelical Protestants, i.e. the conservative base, see homosexuality as sinful while 56 percent of Hispanic
And just 47% of white Caths, while Latinos make up an est. 15% of evangelicals, and 32% of Catholics.
It's reaping time!
We've sown the wind...
Who wooda thought that 56,000,000 future Americans CHOICED to death would have had such an effect?
2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people, who are called by my name,
shall humble themselves,
and pray, and seek my face,
and turn from their wicked ways; ,
then will I hear from heaven,
and will forgive their sin,
and will heal their land.
Are there any of these still left around to turn out the lights?
What we really believe is manifest by what we do and effect, (Ja. 2:18; Mt. 7:20) and souls look for the interpretation of what they heard by how the preachers translate it into their own lives, and as Rome treats even notorious public proabortion prosodomite pols as members in life and in death, which speaks louder for what she officially says.
But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. (1 Corinthians 5:11)
"Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. " (Romans 16:17)
"And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. " (2 Thessalonians 3:14)
Yet as Rome herself much teaches contrary to that of the NT church , so she is to be avoided.
I've read that; somewhere....
NOW you've done it!
I'll say that an OPEN camera would cause a BUNCH of dudes to FLEE the place; as they STILL be inna closet!
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