Executive Summary
Attitudes toward LGBTQ people and LGBTQ rights have become more positive and supportive across the U.S. over time. For example, support for marriage equality has grown from around 30% to over 70% in the past 20 years. Despite growing public support, legislatures have increasingly considered bills to restrict LGBTQ rights, and courts have been asked to narrow the scope of existing protections. One area of recent focus has been whether businesses, medical professionals, and employers should be allowed to deny services or employment to LGBTQ people based on these entities’ religious beliefs.
In this report, we describe the public’s attitudes toward allowing businesses, medical professionals, and employers to use religious beliefs to deny services and employment to LGBTQ people. Our data comes from a survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,003 U.S. adults conducted in September 2022.
Key Findings
Most Americans oppose the use of religious beliefs to deny business services, medical care, and employment to LGBTQ people.
- 84% of respondents opposed allowing medical professionals to withhold care from an LGBTQ person based on religious beliefs.
- 74% of respondents opposed allowing employers to discriminate against LGBTQ people in hiring based on religious beliefs.
- 71% of respondents opposed allowing businesses to deny service to LGBTQ people based on religious beliefs.
Women were more likely than men to oppose the use of religious beliefs to deny business services, medical care, and employment to LGBTQ people. However, over two-thirds of men opposed the use of religious beliefs to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
People of color were generally more likely than white respondents to oppose the use of religious beliefs to deny business services, medical care, and employment to LGBTQ people.
- Over 80% of Black respondents opposed the use of religious beliefs to discriminate against LGBTQ people across all three domains.
- White respondents were the least likely to oppose the use of religious beliefs to deny business services (68%) and employment (71%) compared to people of other races and ethnicities.
- In each racial ethnic group, the majority of respondents (>80%) opposed allowing medical professionals to withhold care to LGBTQ people based on religious beliefs.
The majority of respondents across political affiliations opposed the denial of services, medical care, and employment to LGBTQ people based on religious beliefs.
- An overwhelming majority of Democrats consistently opposed the use of religious beliefs to discriminate across all domains (medical care: 92%; business services: 90%; employment: 89%).
- Over half of Republicans opposed the use of religious beliefs to discriminate across all domains (medical care: 71%; business services: 52%; employment: 54%).
A large majority of all religiously affiliated respondents opposed denials of services, medical care, and employment to LGBTQ people based on religious beliefs.
- About two-thirds or more of Catholics and Protestants/Christians opposed the use of religious beliefs to discriminate against LGBTQ people across all three domains.
- Religiosity was related to attitudes towards refusals based on religious beliefs. Respondents who attended religious services more frequently were more likely than those who attended less frequently to support denials of services, medical care, and employment to LGBTQ people based on religious beliefs.
Knowing someone who is LGBTQ, and the closeness of the relationship, were related to the level of opposition to the use of religious beliefs to deny services, medical care, and employment.
- Respondents with close friends or family members who are LGBTQ were most likely to oppose the use of religious beliefs to discriminate against LGBTQ people (medical care: 86%; business services: 75%; employment: 78%).
- Even among respondents who did not personally know an LGBTQ person, 65% opposed denial of services or employment, and 80% opposed a medical professional denying care to an LGBTQ person.
The survey also asked about attitudes toward other LGBTQ rights, including marriage equality and adoption by same-sex couples, LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination protections, conversion therapy, and more. The topline report of our survey results is available on the NORC at the University of Chicago website.