Taking Pride In America

The latest Gallup poll on same-sex marriage finds the highest support ever for it, a whopping 70% of Americans now approve of it, thirty points higher than just a dozen years ago.

U.S. support for legal same-sex marriage continues to trend upward, now at 70% -- a new high in Gallup's trend since 1996. This latest figure marks an increase of 10 percentage points since 2015, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all states must recognize same-sex marriages.

These data are from Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 3-18.

Today's 70% support for same-sex marriage marks a new milestone in a trend that has pointed upward for a quarter of a century. A small minority of Americans (27%) supported legal recognition of gay and lesbian marriages in 1996, when Gallup first asked the question. But support rose steadily over time, eventually reaching the majority level for the first time in 2011.

By the time of the Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges decision in 2015, support for gay marriage had reached 60%. Since then, the issue has been less prominent in U.S. politics, and public support for same-sex marriage has continued to increase.

Gallup has recorded other shifts in Americans' ideas on marriage over time, historically, including expanded support for interracial marriage, which had 87% approval as of Gallup's 2013 update.

Republicans, who have consistently been the party group least in favor of same-sex marriage, show majority support in 2021 for the first time (55%). The latest increase in support among all Americans is driven largely by changes in Republicans' views.

Democrats have consistently been among the biggest supporters of legal same-sex marriage. The current 83% among Democrats is on par with the level of support Gallup has recorded over the past few years. This could suggest that support for gay marriage has reached a ceiling for this group, at least for now. Meanwhile, support among political independents, now at 73%, is slightly higher than the 68% to 71% range recorded from 2017 to 2020.

 

That's the good news. Even Republicans approve of it. Of course, the bad news is Republicans are still doing everything they can to attack trans folks and kids in particular, same-sex couples adopting children, and actually mentioning that same-sex marriage exists in TV and movies.

And why are Republicans coming around on same-sex marriage? The same reason Republicans "like" affirmative action: the main beneficiaries of both policies have been white people, from both a political and economic standpoint. It serves the GOP on both of those fronts to attack trans folks, too. Republicans can tolerate the L and G and even the B, as long as everyone agrees that the T need to go away.

Republicans haven't gotten "better" on equality. They just moved the goalposts to attack the most vulnerable and split the coalition. It's what they do.