This poll received an unusually high number of people participating. This topic was generated because of the news story out of Britain about a small hotel owner who was fined for refusing service to a same-sex couple. There is also news story about Walgreens and a pharmacist refusing to provide a drug related to an abortion.
“Do you believe that businesses should have the “right to refuse service to anyone?”
“Yes” 91 percent
“No” 7 percent
“Undecided” 2 percent
We received a kind letter from a Canadian gentleman letting us know that didn’t give enough clarification to the question. He explained that we needed to qualify the question by stating “private-sector businesses” and “non-essential services” businesses. Perhaps he is correct, but we struggled with the notion that there even are “government businesses” – what might those be – maybe utility companies? But we do acknowledge that adding “non-essential services” businesses would have made for a better question.
UFI’s position on this question: A business does have the right to refuse services to individuals as long as it is a non-essential service. We’ll leave the definition of “non-essential” to you.