Republican support for same-sex marriage reached a record high of 55% in 2021 and 2022, before falling to a record low of 46% in 2024, even among the party’s youngest voters.
This was consistent with a Gallup poll in June and an earlier one by the Public Religion Research Institute. Surprisingly, the poll also revealed that overall support for same-sex relationships has fallen from 71% in 2022 to 64% in 2023, although support remains high among the general public.
People who have studied the data say a new right-wing campaign against the LGBTQ community is to blame.
Gallup began polling Americans on same-sex marriage in 1996. At the time, only 27% of Americans thought same-sex marriage should be legal. In the years leading up to the 2015 US Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, public opinion shifted rapidly in favor of same-sex marriage.
By the time of the landmark ruling, his national approval rating had soared to 61 percent. Republican approval ratings have consistently been 30 points lower than Democrats, but until recently had been trending steadily upwards.
Not only has Republican support for same-sex marriage fallen, but so has the party’s support for laws protecting LGBTQ citizens from discrimination in housing (66% to 59%) and small businesses (40% to 34%).
PRRI interviewed 22,000 adults for its American Values Atlas survey and found that support for same-sex marriage and anti-discrimination protections for gay Americans has fallen across the board for the first time since it began polling a decade ago.
In an interview with PBS, PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman explained the scope of the survey: “One of the great things about AVA is that we have enough data to look at opinions in all 50 states, but essentially we’re getting a snapshot of all Americans, including people of faith and people with no religion.”
A two percentage point drop in support for same-sex marriage and a four-point drop in support for anti-discrimination laws may not seem like much, but it worries Deckman.
Melissa Deckman
“There’s growing support among Americans in general,” she explained, “and part of that reflects the fact that more Americans, especially younger Americans, are identifying as LGBTQ.”
Since 2016, the percentage of people under 30 who identify as LGBTQ has increased by 15% in Democratic and battleground states, and by more than 10% in Republican states.
Deckman attributes the current decline in support for gay rights to a backlash from conservatives. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision, Republicans shied away from anti-LGBTQ rhetoric because it was an issue they would lose at the polls. But the rise of Christian nationalism within the Republican Party has made opposition to gay rights acceptable again.
“Americans who tend to support Christian nationalism are also much less likely to support rights for LGBTQ Americans, in part because of their theological opposition to the idea of homosexuality and queerness,” Deckman said.
This negative correlation holds true across all 50 states.
Christian nationalist advocacy groups such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, the National Christian Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, and the Family Research Council have added fuel to the fires of a reignited culture war. Between 2016 and 2020, combined donations to 11 nonprofits identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as anti-LGBTQ hate groups increased from $87 million to $110 million.
These groups, funded by anonymous donors through donor-advised funds, have funneled millions of dollars into campaigning for anti-LGBTQ legislation. Of the $25 million in donations it received in 2020-2021, ADF donated $85,000 to the Children’s and Parents’ Rights Campaign, the group that helped write Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and $50,000 to County Citizens Defending Freedom USA, which works to ban LGBTQ books in Florida schools.
The millions of dollars Christian nationalists are pouring into anti-LGBTQ advocacy and propaganda are paying off: According to the ACLU, a total of 510 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state legislatures in 2023, three times the number of such bills introduced in the previous year. The ACLU is currently tracking 527 anti-LGBTQ bills pending in state legislatures across the country.
The influx of Christian nationalist money benefits conservatives in other ways too.
“If you look at young Americans’ attitudes on same-sex marriage among Republicans in 2020, two-thirds support the right to same-sex marriage. But if you look at the data among young Republicans aged 18 to 29 last year, that number is less than half. That’s a really big drop in support,” Deckman said.
Political analysts have long assumed that younger Republicans would moderate the party’s stance on issues like LGBTQ rights and climate change, but the data now tells a different story.
“The data shows that young Republicans are very socially conservative.”
“I think there was an assumption that if we were more accepting of LGBTQ Americans in our daily lives, then naturally people would be more supportive of protecting the rights of LGBTQ Americans,” Deckman said. “The data shows that young Republican voters are very socially conservative.”
At the Republican National Convention, the Republican Party updated its official platform to remove public statements opposing same-sex marriage. Charles T. Moran, president of the conservative LGBTQ group Log Cabin Republicans, welcomed the change and the removal of “outdated and outdated language.” He thanks LGBTQ advocates within the Republican Party for their work in working toward a more inclusive party.
Others are skeptical and see the platform changes as a way to attract undecided voters: The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump administration is staunchly opposed to same-sex marriage, and conservative evangelicals have openly criticized the platform for no longer mentioning it.
Although Republicans have lifted the ban, their platform still proposes strong measures against transgender people, vowing to “bar men from girls’ sports, ban taxpayer funding for sex reassignment surgery, and prevent taxpayer-funded schools from promoting gender transition.”
Republicans’ anti-transgender rhetoric is deliberate: After the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalizing same-sex marriage, the party needed a new issue to galvanize voters and donors.
“We knew we needed to find issues that the candidates were comfortable talking about, so we tackled every issue,” Terry Schilling, president of the conservative social advocacy group American Principles Project, told The New York Times. Issues regarding transgender identity, particularly as it pertains to young people, turned out to be “winning” issues.
When the “bathroom bill” failed to motivate voters, Schilling’s group successfully pushed to ban transgender athletes from girls’ sports, which they then used as a wedge to push other anti-transgender legislation, such as denial of medical care to transgender minors.
A 2022 PRRI survey showed the public is less likely to support transgender rights than same-sex love and abortion rights. Earlier this year, New Hampshire Democrats voted with House Republicans for a bill that would restrict transition health care for young people. This month, Gov. Chris Sununu signed the bill into law.
With little resistance from opponents, Republicans are now expanding their reach from laws concerning children and teens to enacting anti-transgender laws that affect adults, emboldening conservative Christian nationalists in the GOP to push for more anti-LGBTQ policies.
“When the ‘bathroom bill’ failed to motivate voters, Schilling’s group found success by advocating for a ban on transgender athletes from participating in girls’ sports.”
Still, Deckman remains optimistic about the future of rights for the LGBTQ community.
“Despite this decline that we’ve seen, the vast majority of people of faith continue to support the rights of LGBTQ Americans, particularly when it comes to same-sex marriage and anti-discrimination laws,” she said.
But there are fears that the current Supreme Court could overturn previous Supreme Court decisions in Obergefell, just as it did in Roe v. Wade, which overturned the abortion law. Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting in the 2015 case, said he believed the Supreme Court should “reconsider Obergefell” and “right that wrong.”
The Biden administration passed the Defense of Marriage Act, which would require states to recognize same-sex marriages, but would not require states to issue marriage licenses to couples if the Supreme Court were to overturn Obergefell, which would reinstate dormant laws banning same-sex marriage still in effect in 35 states.
“The Supreme Court now has a conservative majority, and there are signs that same-sex marriage rights are in jeopardy,” Deckman said. “We’re going to see lawsuits from conservative groups fighting to roll back same-sex marriage rights.”
She sees the findings as a “good warning not to take such rights for granted.” “It will require political organizing. Elections have consequences.”
Related article:
The debate on divorce, double standards, and same-sex marriage | Ryan Self’s Opinion
Weekly churchgoers are now the main opponents of same-sex marriage
The Respect for Marriage Act helped ease the culture wars | Tanner Bean’s opinion
