In striking down Roe v. Wade the extreme right wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court inflicted their religious view and those of the Christofascists in the Republican Party on all Americans. The ruling has proved immensely unpopular with the vast majority of Americans and made abortion an issue that will continue to plague Republican candidates here in Virginia and nationally. Now, in its ruling in 303 Creative v. Elenis - a case that increasingly appears to have been based on fabricated facts (lies in common parlance) - that same extremist majority has granted bigots using the smoke screen of religious belief a license to discriminate against LGBT individuals and by extension blacks, non-Christians, interracial couples and others and gutted state public accommodation laws. In so ruling, the Court once again underscored that the Court's majority is out of step with the attitudes of a sizable majority of Americans and further caused many to question the Court's very legitimacy. Indeed, rather than being based on the law and constitution, the Court's action was based on the views of bitter religious extremists like Samuel Alito and the wants of evangelicals, a shrinking demographic in America, and demonstrated that religious belief continues to be a force for evil, hatred and bigotry. A piece in USA Today looks at the findings of a new Data for Progress (one of the more accurate polling concerns) survey which shockingly found that 40% of Republicans also say that businesses should be able to refuse services for interracial marriages and interfaith marriages suggesting that gays are just the first of the Christofascists' targets. Here are article excerpts:
Days after the Supreme Court's ruling that businesses can deny same-sex wedding services if it clashes with their religious views, new data says most American voters disagree with that position.
Last week, the nation's high court sided with a Colorado business owner who argued a state non-discrimination law could not compel her to make same-sex websites.
The survey, conducted by Data for Progress, found 65% of voters believe businesses should not be allowed to turn away customers who are of a particular sexual orientation because of the business owner's personal beliefs.
The findings come as LGBTQ rights are increasingly under attack in state Legislatures and other courts.
Despite the onslaught of moves to curtail the rights of LGBTQ people, the Data for Progress survey found voters "consistently land on the side of nondiscrimination, rejecting the idea that business owners should be able to refuse services to a member of a protected class based on personal beliefs," said Rob Todaro, the group's communications director.
Across the U.S., LGBTQ people make up only 7.2% of adults in the U.S. Yet their rights have increasingly come under attack in state legislatures.
Many anti-LGBTQ bills introduced and passed in state houses in recent years were pushed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal advocacy group [actually, ADF is a certified hate group]. In the 303 Creative v. Elenis case, the CEO and president of the ADF argued before the high court on behalf of the web designer.
Other recent data also has shown that the majority of Americans support policies protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination.
Most American adults – including two-thirds of those identifying as Catholics or Christians – disagree with religious-based denial of medical care, employment or other services to LGBTQ individuals, according to a September 2022 survey conducted by the University of Chicago in partnership with the Williams Institute, a think tank dedicated to gender identity and sexual orientation research at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law.
The Human Rights Campaign in 2016 began quantifying support for LGBTQ rights among everyday Americans by identifying voters who said they support pro-LGBTQ rights political candidates and vote against anti-LGBTQ candidates.
This group of voters, dubbed "equality voters," accounted for 29% of the electorate in 2018, according to Human Rights Campaign data. In comparison, white Evangelicals made up 26% of voters.
As noted, LGBT citizens are not the only ones bigots within the Republican Party base want to discriminate against. Here are some other findings of the new survey that show that today's GOP is not only anti-democracy but also the party of open bigotry. Here is more on the survey findings:
This case is particularly perplexing as it was entirely hypothetical — the plaintiff had never designed a website for a wedding up until the point of filing the lawsuit against the state of Colorado, and no gay couple had requested one or been turned away. It was all made up for the sake of challenging Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act.
New Data for Progress polling finds that 65 percent of voters say 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. This includes a majority of voters across age, race/ethnicity, and gender, and a plurality of Republicans (48 percent).
64 percent of voters say the right of individuals to be served by businesses, regardless of their race, religion, disability, or sexual orientation, is more important than the right of business owners to refuse service based on their conscience or religious beliefs (30 percent).
When asked about various hypothetical scenarios, more than 3 in 5 voters disagree that a business owner should be able to refuse services for interfaith marriages (63 percent), interracial marriages (67 percent), or a baby shower for an unwed mother (68 percent). The belief that business owners should be able to refuse services in these scenarios is driven by Republican voters, with more than 1 in 3 agreeing in each case.
While the precedent set by this decision is alarmingly gray, the harms of discrimination are abundantly clear. And most voters do not believe one’s beliefs are justifiable means for discrimination against a member of a protected class.
No comments:
Post a Comment