Tuesday, July 02, 2019
OK To Refuse Service To Jews, New Study Finds
Between neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, the synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh and the shul shooting in Poway, Calif., the Jewish community has been on edge for more than a year.
Synagogues and Jewish institutions are holding active shooter drills, scrambling to beef up security and struggling to raise money to pay for it all. Anti-Semitic incidents, as recorded by the Anti-Defamation League and the NYPD, have soared over the last two years.
Now, a new survey by the nonpartisan, Washington-based Public Religion Research Institute finds that nearly 20 percent of Americans consider it permissible for businesses to refuse service to Jews on religious grounds. That figure — 19 percent — represents a seven percent jump from 2014, when 12 percent considered such a refusal permissible.
According to the survey, “Increasing Support For Religiously Based Service Refusals,” Republicans are more likely than Democrats to support service refusal to Jews, 24 percent to 17 percent.
“A small but increasing number of Americans think it should be permissible to turn away customers based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, religion or race,” said PRRI founder Robert Jones. “While legislative agendas and the media have mostly focused on such policies in relationship to the LGBTQ community, this survey indicates that these sentiments about religiously based service refusals extend to other minority groups such as atheists, Muslims, Jews and African Americans.”
The survey, which polled 1,100 people in April, comes amid an emerging legal battle between businesses’ “public accommodation” and business owners’ “freedom of religion” right to place convictions before profit. While it did not specify what “religious” grounds or scripture a business owner could cite, the study indicated that substantial minorities of U.S. citizens view it permissible for the owner of a small business to refuse service — in such places as restaurants or bakeries — to members of other religious groups and minorities.
https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/ok-to-refuse-service-to-jews-new-study-finds/
Synagogues and Jewish institutions are holding active shooter drills, scrambling to beef up security and struggling to raise money to pay for it all. Anti-Semitic incidents, as recorded by the Anti-Defamation League and the NYPD, have soared over the last two years.
Now, a new survey by the nonpartisan, Washington-based Public Religion Research Institute finds that nearly 20 percent of Americans consider it permissible for businesses to refuse service to Jews on religious grounds. That figure — 19 percent — represents a seven percent jump from 2014, when 12 percent considered such a refusal permissible.
According to the survey, “Increasing Support For Religiously Based Service Refusals,” Republicans are more likely than Democrats to support service refusal to Jews, 24 percent to 17 percent.
“A small but increasing number of Americans think it should be permissible to turn away customers based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, religion or race,” said PRRI founder Robert Jones. “While legislative agendas and the media have mostly focused on such policies in relationship to the LGBTQ community, this survey indicates that these sentiments about religiously based service refusals extend to other minority groups such as atheists, Muslims, Jews and African Americans.”
The survey, which polled 1,100 people in April, comes amid an emerging legal battle between businesses’ “public accommodation” and business owners’ “freedom of religion” right to place convictions before profit. While it did not specify what “religious” grounds or scripture a business owner could cite, the study indicated that substantial minorities of U.S. citizens view it permissible for the owner of a small business to refuse service — in such places as restaurants or bakeries — to members of other religious groups and minorities.
https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/ok-to-refuse-service-to-jews-new-study-finds/
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