February 10, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- The Associated Press has released poll results of Americans’ views on homosexual “marriage,” along with some of its repercussions, and the findings warrant a bit more than a passing glance.

“Support of Gay Marriage Comes With Caveats,” the headline reads in the report from ABC News.

Since a caveat is a warning of some sort of limitation, we have an “uh-oh” there portending all is not well in the land of milk and honey/tolerance and progressivism.

So while the poll indicates something encouraging overall in the area of religious freedom, let’s first look at what they say right out of the gate.

The story leads with the statement that Americans “narrowly favor” legalized homosexual marriage according to the poll, conducted by the Associated Press and GFK Public Affairs & Corporate Communications.

What does that mean?

Lower in the report you find where the poll says that 44 percent of Americans favor legalized homosexual “marriage” in their own states.

“Narrowly favor” would seem to suggest a majority. And while 44 percent is greater than the 39 percent the AP poll said oppose legalization, it’s not a majority, certainly not an overwhelming one, which might be why the actual statistic is buried lower in the story.

I take most polls with a bolder-sized grain of salt, because anyone can get any poll result to say anything they want, if nothing else, simply in how questions are phrased.

That said, I’m rather enjoying the AP’s begrudging acknowledgement of the caveat, and the real meat and potatoes here.

The poll also said most Americans think wedding-related businesses should not be forced to go against their religious beliefs by going along with same-gender “marriage” via their services. Of course it was worded differently in AP-speak.

The other, I think even bigger, “caveat,” is the poll indicated as well that half of U.S. citizens also believe local government officials and judges with religious objections to legalized homosexual “marriage” should be exempt from being required to issue marriage licenses in those cases.

I view that as huge. Apparently so does the AP, well, at least the reader didn’t have to sift to find that.

Once again people, that was: 57 percent of Americans said businesses with religious objections “should be allowed to refuse service to same-sex couples,” and 50 percent said state and local officials and judges who issue marriage licenses but have religious objections “should be exempt from issuing them.”

Americans favor religious freedom. What do you know? All is not lost.

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I’d venture a guess most Americans would not agree either with the heinous persecution underway against those U.S. merchants who do stand up for their religious convictions when it comes to marriage.

Now there’s a poll question: “Do you favor or oppose smearing and bankrupting people who don’t share the same values as the secular culture?”

Religious freedom trumps homosexual marriage - I’m thinking that should have been the story’s headline.

Okay, so sadly, many Americans have apparently bought into the “tolerance” shtick, but, thank the Lord, most do not agree with forcing this misrepresented notion on other people.

I’ll take that minor nugget of hope as our society careens further down the slippery moral relativity slope.

And really, here’s another kicker.

Though not shown in the published data, ABC reports that the poll finds “about a quarter of those who favor legal same-sex marriage also favor religious exemptions for those who issue marriage licenses, and a third say wedding-related businesses should be allowed to refuse service.”

That means three-quarters of those in favor of redefining marriage do not support religious freedom for public officials, and two-thirds of them do not support it for business owners, 75 and 67 percent respectively.

That’s considerably more than the national average of Americans found in the poll who do support religious freedom.

So from the AP poll numbers we can surmise that these folks, the ones who support the agenda of those who want to mess with what God made, are out of touch with the majority of Americans.