Survey Finds Broad Opposition to ‘License to Discriminate’ Laws

By Trudy Ring

If you listen to anti-LGBT politicians and activists, you’d think Americans are clamoring for “turn away the gays” laws — but a new survey indicates that’s not the case.

The 2016 American Values Atlas, released today by the Public Religion Research Institute, found that no major religious group had a majority of members supporting “license to discriminate” laws. And there was broad endorsement of marriage equality as well.

“For the first time in a PRRI poll of this size, no major religious group reports majority support for religiously based service refusals of gay and lesbian Americans,” PRRI CEO Robert P. Jones said in a press release. “And most religious groups today support same-sex marriage. The religious groups in which majorities oppose same-sex marriage make up less than 20 percent of the public.”

Sixty-one of those surveyed opposed allowing small business owners in their state to turn away gay or lesbian customers on religious grounds. Only half (50 percent) of white evangelical Protestants and fewer than half of Mormons (42 percent), Hispanic Protestants (34 percent), black Protestants (25 percent), and Jehovah’s Witnesses (25 percent) believe small business owners should have “religious refusal” rights.

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