Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults say same-sex marriage should be recognized by the law as valid. Although not meaningfully different from the 61% last year, this is the highest percentage to date and continues the generally steady rise since Gallup's trend began in 1996.
The latest update, from Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs poll conducted May 3-7, comes nearly two years after the Supreme Court ruled that states could not prohibit same-sex marriage.
Since then, debates about same-sex marriage have faded somewhat from public discourse as LGBT rights advocates have focused on other issues, such as transgender bathroom access.
Americans' support for same-sex marriage has more than doubled since Gallup first polled on the issue in 1996, when 27% said it should be recognized as valid by the law.
Over the past two decades, Democrats have almost always been the political group most likely to say gay marriages should be legally recognized.
U.S. Protestants, including all non-Catholic Christians, are now about twice as likely to support gay marriage as they were in 1996 (55% vs. 27%). Meanwhile, a majority of U.S. Catholics have consistently supported same-sex marriage since 2011, which is at odds with the Roman Catholic Church's official position opposing same-sex marriage.
Americans have consistently been more likely to say that same-sex relations should be legal than to say that gay marriage should be legally valid, suggesting that the marriage question pushes a moral, religious or cultural boundary for some people that gay relationships do not.
I thought the Supreme Court ended this issue in our favor ! ?
ReplyDeleteThey did resolve it, in Obergefell v. Hodges in June, 2015. However, the decision was 5-4, and worries are that a socially conservative justice could conceivably replace the next seat the comes open after Gorsuch -- thought to be either Kennedy or Ginsburg, both of who voted for a fundamental right to marry for LGBT people guaranteed by the Constitution. What rights SCOTUS gives they can chip away at -- and overturn through "nicks and cuts"- much as they are now doing with reproductive rights for women. Now, a challenge would have to work its way up the appeals process -- and one is not in the works --- but SCOTUS does not like to go against the majority thought of the American people. Polls like this are reassuring to the LGBT Community that a more conservative SCOTUS in the future would not dare risk popular dissent by stripping away our hard earned rights.
DeleteThanks Eddi for your explanation, very complete and comprehensive as usual, big kiss baby!
ReplyDeleteBy Reg Reinhart:
ReplyDeleteTHESE ARE THINGS THAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPEN ALONG TIME AGO FOR THE GAY FRIENDS