{"id":3259,"date":"2015-03-31T18:03:22","date_gmt":"2015-03-31T23:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/?p=3259"},"modified":"2015-03-31T18:03:22","modified_gmt":"2015-03-31T23:03:22","slug":"graph-of-the-week-religious-right-to-discriminate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2015\/03\/31\/graph-of-the-week-religious-right-to-discriminate\/","title":{"rendered":"Graph of the Week \u2013 Religious Right to Discriminate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2014\/09\/23\/graph-of-the-week-religious-influence-on-american-life\/\" target=\"_blank\">Awhile back<\/a> I pointed out this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewforum.org\/2014\/09\/22\/public-sees-religions-influence-waning-2\/\" target=\"_blank\">ominously subtitled report<\/a> from the Pew Research Center. Today, this report becomes relevant again as the State of Indiana comes under fire for passing a law which will probably have the effect of codifying discrimination against various groups on religious grounds. (Please <a href=\"religionclause.blogspot.com\/2015\/03\/why-is-indianas-rfra-so-controversial.html\" target=\"_blank\">read this post<\/a> for the relevant legal background in plain English.) This calls the question of where the American electorate currently stands on the issue of whether private businesses should be allowed to discrimination against gays and lesbians, and the answer (alas) is that we are roughly evenly split:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Six months ago, Pew asked if businesses have &quot;right to refuse&quot; service for same-sex weddings. Result: 47%-49%  <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/udMsdQxxtw\">http:\/\/t.co\/udMsdQxxtw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; John McCormack (@McCormackJohn) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/McCormackJohn\/status\/582942894811713536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 31, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>To quote from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewforum.org\/files\/2014\/09\/Religion-Politics-09-24-PDF-for-web.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">full report<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The public is evenly divided over whether businesses that provide wedding services, like catering or flowers, should be required to provide services to same-sex couples despite religious objections to same-sex marriage. Half (49%) say that wedding-related businesses should be required to provide services to same-sex couples just as they would to all other customers, while 47% say that these businesses should be allowed to refuse services to same-sex couples for religious reasons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There is reason to be cautiously optimistic, however, because if we <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewforum.org\/2014\/09\/22\/section-3-social-political-issues\/\" target=\"_blank\">break down the numbers<\/a> by age cohort there is a distinct trend <em>away<\/em> from permitting\u00a0businesses to turn away customers based on sexual orientation.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2015\/03\/pew-sep2014-q52.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3260\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2015\/03\/pew-sep2014-q52.png\" alt=\"pew sep2014 q52\" width=\"479\" height=\"380\" srcset=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2015\/03\/pew-sep2014-q52.png 479w, https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2015\/03\/pew-sep2014-q52-300x238.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 479px) 100vw, 479px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When we see a strong trend away from the traditionally held position as the people surveyed get younger, we can predict with some confidence which way the political winds are blowing.\u00a0In a generation or two,\u00a0straights-only florists will be every bit as uncommon, reviled, and illegal as whites-only shops are today.<\/p>\n<p>But fear not, bigoted florists and caterers of America! You can always get a job working directly for the organization\u00a0which taught you to hate gays and lesbians so hotly\u00a0that you refuse\u00a0their patronage. There will always be a place for irrational prejudice within the church, not to mention\u00a0a legal\u00a0exemption therefor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Awhile back I pointed out this ominously subtitled report from the Pew Research Center. Today, this report becomes relevant again&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":2328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,10,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-damned-lies-and-statistics","category-politics","category-movement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3261,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259\/revisions\/3261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}