Public opinion has evolved rapidly on the matter of same-sex marriage rights over the course of less than a decade. It was only just over six years ago that millions of liberal voters in California turned out to both vote Barack Obama into office and to oppose the right of gay couples to marry. Today, with courts dismantling gay marriage bans in states all over the Union in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Windsor v. United States, support for same-sex marriage has become a plurality or majority opinion in America depending on the poll.

Even among the GOP’s social conservatives, some are coming around to the notion that support for same-sex marriage is no longer a disqualifying opinion that should result in banishment from the Republican coalition. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, no libertarian, has conceded that the GOP should be a party diverse enough to allow for the inclusion of those who back the right of gay couples to wed.

But support for same-sex marriage rights is not the same thing as support for the trampling the religious convictions that lead millions to believe that gay marriage is a sin and should be opposed. In Oregon, a local bakery could be forced to pay a $150,000 fine after the business’s owners were found guilty of discrimination following their refusal to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple in 2013. According to a new survey, a majority of Americans believe that is an injustice.

While finding that Americans narrowly favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry, a new Associated Press-GfK poll also shows most believe wedding-related businesses should be allowed to deny service to same-sex couples for religious reasons.

Roughly half the country also thinks local officials and judges with religious objections ought to be exempt from any requirement that they issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples, according to the poll.

That view of the same-sex marriage issue echoes that of the Mormon church. Last week, the church called on state legislatures to pass new laws that protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination but also to protect the rights of those who assert their religious beliefs.

According to that AP/GfK poll, conducted from January 29 to February 2 of 1,045 adults, 57 percent of the public believes that Americans offering wedding-related services should be legally allowed to refuse service to gay couples if it would violate their religious convictions. That same poll also found that a plurality, 44 percent, back the right of gay couples to marry in their home state while 39 percent oppose that right.

Interestingly, AP/GfK found that the nation is evenly split at 48 to 48 percent on whether the Supreme Court should decide once and for all whether denying same-sex couples the right to wed constitutes discrimination.

What the Court will be deciding is not, however, a moral issue but a legal one. The Court ruled narrowly in Windsor, but that decision has led lower courts to strike down gay marriage bans in a variety of states. Either through legislation or court order, gay marriage is now legal in 36 states. The Court will have to determine whether it should continue to be a legal right of the remaining 14 states to refuse to recognize marriage license provided to gay couples across state lines.

This poll suggests that most Americans support the liberty of all people to pursue happiness, as it were; be that marrying the person of your choice or observing your religion as you see fit. The thorny issue that neither the Supreme Court nor the nation’s legislatures may be able to resolve, however, is when those two rights conflict with one another.