Americans' approval of same-sex marriage isn't growing anymore

LGBTQ flag.
(Image credit: nito100/iStock)

The portion of Americans who favor allowing same-sex couples to marry seems to have stalled out.

A new survey from Pew Research Center shows that 61 percent of Americans now say they favor letting gays and lesbians marry legally. That's a big shift from 2004, when 60 percent said they opposed same-sex marriage, but actually a downgrade from the 62 percent measured two years ago.

Same-sex marriage approval has generally pulled a 180 in America over the past 15 years, with its approval soaring in both political parties and among "nearly all demographic groups," Pew says. That includes Catholics and Gen Xers, which both reported majority support for same-sex marriage, while 51 percent of Baby Boomers said the same. Approval is highest in the youngest Millennial generation and among liberal Democrats, the survey shows.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Overall, same-sex marriage approval peaked in 2017, a few years after the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Yet since then, things haven't changed, with approval actually falling from 47 to 44 percent among Republicans in the past two years.

Pew Research Center surveyed 1,503 adults from March 20-25, with 300 interviewed via landline and the rest surveyed by cell phone. The survey had a 3 percent margin of error. Find the whole poll here.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.