Majority of registered voters oppose refusing service to LGBTQ+
Results of a new poll conducted by the Washington D.C. based Data for Progress released last week showed that 65 percent of voters believe businesses should not be allowed to turn away customers who are of a particular race, religion, disability, or sexual orientation because of the business owner’s personal beliefs.
The polling came after the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority ruled in favor of Lori Smith, the Colorado-based graphic artist who did not want to make wedding websites for same-sex couples despite Colorado’s nondiscrimination law barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. “The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority 6-3 decision along ideological lines in 303 Creative v.
Elenis. The liberal justices, however, called the majority’s finding of a free speech exemption to nondiscrimination rules “unprecedented,” warning it would blow a hole through these laws and pave the way for anti-LGBTQ discrimination by businesses.
The Data for Progress poll included a majority of voters across age, race/ethnicity, and gender, and a plurality of Republicans (48 percent). “303 Creative was a purely hypothetical case.
