Posted on 04/10/2015 9:29:37 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A sequel to yesterday’s Reuters poll. Again, the most politically salient question, whether Christian business owners should be able to deny service for gay weddings specifically, is conspicuously left out of this survey. (You get three guesses why and the first two don’t count.) But then, RFRA laws aren’t limited to gay weddings either. Theoretically they provide a religious defense to any discrimination lawsuit, not just one involving marriage. What’s useful about these polls is seeing which side the public thinks should prevail in those lawsuits, at least in cases involving a total denial of service to a particular group. (Not only are there no cases like that out there right now, no RFRA statute has ever been used successfully as a defense to discrimination.) Verdict: Even the “very religious” say antidiscrimination laws should trump religious liberty when it comes to turning an entire group away categorically:
There’s the old paradox at work — Americans broadly support the right of business owners to refuse service for any reason, but once you specify that the reason might involve some personal objection to a historically disfavored group, the numbers flip. Interestingly, when asked whether eliminating discrimination or protecting religious liberty is more important to them, 59 percent of “very religious” voters say the latter versus just 35 percent who say the former. In theory, they want the business owner’s religious liberty right to trump the gay customer’s right to be served. But not in practice, when you ask them about that specific scenario.
Needless to say, the “you can’t refuse service to someone because of who they are” rule doesn’t apply to every group. Here’s what happened when YouGov asked whether a religious business owner should be able to turn away a member of a hate group like the KKK. Top line is “should,” second line is “should not,” third is “not sure”:
The groups most supportive of the business owner’s right to tell the Klansman, “Hit the bricks, scumbag”: Conservatives and Republicans, whom the media would have you believe belong to a party that is itself one big klavern. Democrats can’t even get to 50 percent support and liberals actually oppose the right to deny service here on balance. (Other groups with pluralities who oppose kicking the Klan out: Northeasterners, Latinos, and people who make more than $100,000 per year, although some of those subsamples could be dodgy due to high margins of error.) I assume that’s slippery-slope logic at work. Liberals could argue that it’s okay to deny service to the KKK but not to gays and lesbians because of the exceptional immorality of the first group, but codifying an “exceptional immorality” exemption to discrimination laws would be hard. They could fall back on the argument that, moral distinctions aside, joining the Klan is a choice while being gay is not, but of course not everyone agrees with the latter so that argument wouldn’t get them far. They could argue that gays have been historically disempowered until recently and therefore, like racial and religious minorities, deserve special protection from antidiscrimination laws that political groups don’t. But that argument will become increasingly hard to maintain as gays grow more powerful politically. After all, as I write this, we’re probably less than three months away from the Supreme Court granting gay-marriage supporters supreme victory. Evidently, in the interest of avoiding all those tangles and limiting exemptions to antidiscrimination laws as strictly as possible, liberals would force Memories Pizza to plate a slice of deep dish for the local Grand Dragon rather than grant them the right to turn him — and thus, potentially, some more sympathetic customer — away.
It’s funny, because in NYC in the 70s there were all these clubs for gays and they were having sex in them, on the floor in the back rooms, in the jacuzzi’s. It was really an unclean health hazard.
Then the city was overloaded with HIV.
Course, no one refused them service.
They still have these clubs, btw, in all major cities. Not a word about the health hazards because the clubs are run by gays themselves.
I’m sure it won’t be too long before you hear of HIV, Hepatitis B & C, Syphillis, Herpes epidemics, because lets face it, young gay guys are not looking to get married. The more the field is welcome to them the more they will go back to the same lifestyle.
They are kidding themselves.
1975 - All Homosexuals want is privacy in their own bedrooms
1985 - All Homosexuals want is an end to discrimination against their sexual practices
1995 - All Homosexuals want is public acceptance of their perversion as just another lifestyle choice
2005 - All Homosexuals want is mandatory acceptance of their perversion as normal
2015 - All Homosexuals want is government punishment for anyone who holds a religious belief that does not condone homosexualism
2020 - All Homosexuals want is mandatory inculcation of homosexualism in grade schools
2025 - All Homosexuals want is government punishment for anyone refusing a same-sex sexual overture
File under stupid poll questions. The vague wording deliberately assumes that any and all refusal of service is motivated by the same standard. In other words, that religious convictions are just another form of discrimination. By the way, I think that those who insist on the right to “deny service for any reason” are playing right into the LGBTQ argument against religious scruples being a legitimate motive.
Yeah, right. A roto reuters poll
Soon they are going to force Buddy to bake a “gay” cake on TV for a wedding depicting a same sex couple engaging in an x-rated act.
Buddy’s mom used to prevent bikini clad models from appearing on bachelor party cakes when she was on the show.
walking with someone an extra mile does not mean participating in sinful activity
Other business rights that seem endangered in this are dress and behavior codes. I doubt that destruction of property will still be prohibited but will the business be able to prohibit excessive displays of affection or dress designed to repulse or shock? Behavior I’ve seen in gay rights parades in Portland would clear out most any restaurant. The LGBT types could run a straight oriented business to the poorhouse with persistent patronage.
“Poll: 57% of “very religious” Americans say businesses shouldn’t be able to refuse service to gays”
Very religious? Whom did they poll? Satanists?
Agreed. But, this principle you site does not mean that most people would agree with this decision. In fact, extremly few people would be supportive of someone who turned people away for skin color, but that person does have the right to do it.
The left, at this point, thinks the government has to step in. On the contrary, the marketplace of ideas will dictate whether someone who refuses service to minorities will survive. Obviously, such ideas would not survive.
This is why I’m ok with all male golf clubs, all female colleges, all Christian Schools...heck, all gay schools. People can do what they want. It’s Amercia
Just goes to show you that so many people even with religion out of the equation no longer understand liberty, freedom, or the Constitution as written.
We are losing the battle because we are not properly defining the issue. The issue is not about homosexuals per se; it is about homosexual ACTIVITY.
The question should be: should anyone be forced to participate in an ACTIVITY promoting something they find objectionable?
If I’m a baker, any respectful customer wearing shirts & shoes should be permitted to purchase whatever is generally for sale at my store. If they want something “special” - that is, something I don’t generally offer, then I should have a say in what it is that I produce.
It’s very simple. We are not about refusing people - we are about refusing to participate in promoting whatever activity that we find objectionable.
That sign is ending up right next to the ones that say “Whites Only”. Like it or not.
The question needs to be put in a context.
No a restaurant shouldn’t be able to refuse to serve food to a gay person that isn’t causing a disturbance.
But yes, a restaurant shouldn’t be forced to cater to a ceremony such as a wedding that is religious, quasi-religious, or a mockery of religion.
The question needs to be put in a context.
No a restaurant shouldn’t be able to refuse to serve food to a gay person that isn’t causing a disturbance.
But yes, a restaurant shouldn’t be forced to cater to a ceremony such as a wedding that is religious, quasi-religious, or a mockery of religion.
This is a stupid question that is interpreted incorrectly.
Refusing service to gays is one thing
Refusing service because those gays will use your service to mock your beliefs is another.
If a gay man is ordering a birthday cake, I as a baker should have almost no basis to object. However a wedding cake is another matter altogether...but the poll question doesn’t make that distinction and it is interpreted that religious people approve of gay “marriage”
I don’t remember ever being asked if I was straight or gay when I have entered any business.
“Polls” are nothing but bull**** these days. A joke.
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