It might play well in Iowa, but it's not a winning national issue in my estimation. Rand went down this path a few years ago when running for the Sentate, but retreated after he figured out it was a losing position.
"New data show Americans are strongly opposed to government forcing business owners to violate their deeply held religious beliefs."
Sadly, no link is provided for this assertion.
Here is a hypothetical (one that has been used continuously by the gay marriage supporters):
What if my religion strongly rejects the equality of Black people, or teaches that Jews are evil. Would Ted & Co. support a business owner refusing to service Blacks or Jews?
We had the "deeply held beliefs" vs. "right to use of public accommodations" argument in this country already. It's not really open for re-litgation. (That's what Rand tried to do, and failed).
This was litigated and decided in the USA in the 1960s, when the Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. From WIkipedia:
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88–352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) is a landmark piece of civil rights legislation in the United States[5] that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.[6] It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public (known as "public accommodations").This law is almost universally viewed as virtuous and good law. The fact is though, that it significantly reduced the rights of business owners and pushes against the whole idea of people's right to voluntary associations with others. It started by being applied to public transport, hotels and, famously, lunch counters. But in the 1990s we saw it being used as a club to forcibly integrate all-male private social clubs.
As soon as gays won the "it's just like being black, it's genetic" part of their argument it was obvious that we would end up here.
No one, not even Ted, can answer the straw man of why the Christian Identity owner of a dry cleaner is evil for not wanting to clean a black mans pants, but the Christian owner of a bakery is within the bounds of the law by refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding.
He's not showing his famed Ivy League Debating Logic on this. More importantly, it's a poor issue to run on.
Here is some YouTube of a less experienced Rand trying to nuance this issue. Rand on Maddow. He makes some good points, but failed miserably to carry the debate on this.
So what’s your opinion on the bakery issue?
He failed be cause he’s Rand Paul. He’d rather go after the pot smoking voters.