Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Majority of Coloradans Support Hobby Lobby Decision

Somewhat surprising, the latest Quinnipiac Colorado poll shows that a majority of the public supports the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision. It carved an exception out of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for family-owned corporations that have religious objections to providing free and subsidized contraception for employees as an ACA requirement. If you had been watching television political advertising the last few weeks or following Senator Mark Udall’s legislative activities, you would assume the public was overwhelmingly against the Hobby Lobby exception.

But 50 percent of Coloradans support it and only 46 percent take the Udall position. But, a majority of women oppose it and Udall and his independent expenditure supporters are primarily targeting women. Although a majority of women oppose the decision, 43 percent agree.

This finding is no doubt affected by the continuing dislike of the ACA (Obamacare) in general. But support for religious rights appears to have some resonance and the Democratic Party’s commitment to universal free and subsidized contraception as a right is not yet a valiance issue.

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