Majority of People Support Gay Marriage

There has been rising support for same-sex marriages among Americans. This came to light in a new poll, conducted by Meetville.com (dating app to find the right person) between 2/3/20 and 9/1/20

The poll posed the question “Same-sex marriage allowed or banned?”, and yielded the following results: 58% favor same-sex marriages and 42% - oppose.

Support for same-sex marriage has changed for the better more rapidly than almost any social issue in the past decade. “Much of opposition stems from homophobia and people give irrational justifications mostly having to do with parenting and 'undermining marriage as an institution to justify their position," says Jack Glaser, associate professor of public policy at the University of California.

Those polled numbered 170,334. From the USA - 73%, from Canada - 3%, from Britain - 7%, from Australia - 4% and from other countries - 13%.

As for the United States, the attitude towards same-sex marriage has improved markedly over the past decade, since it was first legalized in Massachusetts. Recently, American lawmakers and courts have increasingly given permission for same-sex marriage.

4,509 people took part in the poll by the Public Religion Research Institute on American attitudes towards the LGBT community. About 53% of respondents said they support same-sex marriage. Meanwhile, in 2003, when Massachusetts first legalized such marriages, only 32% of Americans approved of them.

According to the head of the institute, Robert Jones, the results of the poll are consistent with the results of other studies that have shown that the majority of Americans support same-sex marriage. He believes that this trend, which has been growing over the past decade, represents "a very significant change."

"Public opinion rarely changes so dramatically in just ten years," Jones explains. Recall that seventeen states and the District of Columbia have legalized same-sex marriage. In some states, the ban on them was lifted after the US Supreme Court ruled in June that same-sex couples who are legally married have the same right to federal benefits as spouses of different sexes.

The poll also showed that there are fewer opponents of same-sex marriage among those who consider themselves religious people. Among the millennial generation (people aged 18-33), about 31% of respondents noted that the negative attitude of the church towards same-sex couples was one of the main reasons for leaving their home region.

Alex Cusper, Meetville service analyst, mentions that the support for same-sex marriage generally increases with higher levels of education and that younger people are more likely to support legalization than older generations. However, in various developed countries, it has already increased across every age group, political ideology, religion, gender, and race.

Meetville, a leading mobile dating service, regularly conducts research among its users. Millions of people from the U.S., Canada, Britain, and Australia answer hundreds of questions every month. You can find the results of the poll here. If you are interested in research on a particular topic, please contact us. Any reprint of the material should be followed by clickable links to the survey.