"Religious Freedom" Laws Losing Public Support

Some positives seem to be flowing out of the efforts of Christofascists and their groveling political whores in the Republican Party to enact license to discriminate laws paraded about as "religious freedom" laws.  Public support for these laws has dropped markedly and perhaps the efforts to pass them are finally waking the larger public up to the true ugliness of the "godly Christian" crowd and its demands to have special rights that put them above the civil laws.  The Washington Post looks at this welcomed development.  Here are highlights:

One of the apparent side effects of the religious freedom controversies in Indiana and (to a lesser extent) Arkansas: More Americans now oppose such laws than before.

While a Pew Research Center poll conducted in September showed Americans were split on whether businesses with religious objections should be able to refuse service to a gay wedding (with 47 percent in favor), and a January AP-GfK poll showed a clear majority (57 percent) thought they should be able to, a new CNN/Opinion Research poll suggests increasing skepticism of religious freedom laws.

The new poll shows just 41 percent think businesses should be able to refuse service to gay weddings, while 57 percent disagree.

Similarly, a Suffolk poll from earlier this month showed 58 percent opposed to such an exemption.

Defending such business protections might still play well in Republican audiences, but not among Democrats or independents. The CNN poll found 70 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of independents say businesses should be required to provide wedding services despite religious objections -- both slightly higher than in Pew’s poll before the Indiana controversy. But 67 percent of Republicans still support businesses having the freedom to refuse same-sex marriage clients -- a number that is hardly changed from the fall (68 percent).

The fact that even the more-palatable idea of refusing services just to gay weddings appears to be falling out of favor is bad omen for religious freedom laws -- in case it wasn't already clear from what happened in Indiana that they were in trouble.

Let's hope the trend continues and that more and more members of the public will oppose the Christofascist push for special rights.