In 2014, and again in 2016, the Pew Research Center found that an almost equal split of Americans believed that wedding-related businesses should be required to serve same-sex couples (49%) as should be allowed to refuse services for religious reasons (48%). A valuable finding, but one that does not provide key insight into what wedding professionals–the group of small business owners most directly impacted by this question–think about the question of religious liberty vs. nondiscrimination*.
Although the Supreme Court may have settled the question of marriage equality in 2015, it, like the wedding industry itself, did not resolve the simmering debate about whether or not wedding professionals should be compelled to serve same-sex couples if they oppose same-sex marriage. With the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. the Colorado Civil Rights Commission decision pending at the Supreme Court, this study asked wedding professionals to weigh in on the question the Pew Research Center asked: “Should wedding-related businesses be able to refuse to provide services to same-sex couples based on religious objections or required to provide those services to same-sex couples as they would all other couples?”
