White Evangelicals Are The Only Religious Group That Agrees With Kim Davis

In case you were wondering if Kim Davis’s holy struggle to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples was actually about religious freedom, take this data point from this new Washington Post/ABC News poll, which found that nearly two thirds of Americans think Kim Davis should be required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples:

White Evangelical Protestants were also the only religious subgrouping that had a plurality indicate that when religious beliefs and the need to treat everyone equally under the law come into conflict, religion should take precedence. And it wasn’t even close, with the percentage giving priority to religion nearly tripling the figure from the next-highest sub-group, and three quarters of all respondents siding with equal protection:

While the poll’s religion section only broke out a handful of religious sub-groupings, the results are clear: When Kim Davis says her refusal to do her job as a public official and issue marriage licenses to same sex couples is grounded in a concern for her religious freedom, the only group of people who think those words mean what she says they mean are white Evangelical Protestants. Everyone else — those who don’t share her beliefs — are well aware that she isn’t talking about them when she waxes Jeffersonian about religious liberty.

As I’ve written before, these claims of LGBT equality somehow coming at the cost of religious freedom only make sense if you torture the concept of religious freedom until it becomes synonymous with Christian privilege. Members of the non-Evangelical religious sub-groupings listed in the poll — along with the ones not listed —  know perfectly well that if they are allowed to use their religious beliefs to deny others rights, it opens the door for others to use their religious beliefs to deny them rights. That isn’t religious freedom; it’s a religious free-for-all.

If white Evangelical Protestants were really concerned with religious freedom, then they wouldn’t be trying to prevent Muslims from building cemeteries (or community centers). And they’d speak up a little louder when Muslim flight attendants refuse to serve alcohol. And they’d be a little more accommodating to members of non-traditional faiths who want to take advantage of the same privileges Christians have won for themselves.

But no, this isn’t about that. It’s just about a particular brand of Christianity maintaining what grip it can on American government and culture. And the rest of us — religious and irreligious — know it. –America Blog