Surprising new data from Gallup shows support for same-sex marriage is declining among Americans, down 6 percentage points this year compared to highs in 2022 and 2023.
“After two decades of growing support for LGBTQ+ issues, U.S. attitudes have plateaued and are beginning to slowly retreat,” the Gallup report said. “Approval of same-sex marriage, moral acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships, and support for gender reassignment have all declined from peaks reached in the early 2020s.”
The biggest change occurred among Republicans, where support for same-sex marriage fell by 18 percentage points. While 55% of Republicans supported same-sex marriage in 2021 and 2022, that statistic now stands at just 37%. Among independents, 67% still support it, although it has fallen by 6 points. Support for the Democratic Party remains at 87%, essentially unchanged.
Tony Perkins, president of the Christian group Family Research Council, believes many people have changed their minds based on the realization that same-sex marriage is having a far more negative and far-reaching impact than originally envisaged. Many supporters of legalizing same-sex marriage initially argued that it would not affect other people’s marriages or broader culture.
“I think most Americans are pretty laissez-faire…’I don’t care,'” Perkins said. “And they were convinced that this didn’t affect them and that it was just two people who loved each other who could get married.”
He added: “Now here we are… almost 10-plus years later, and we realize there’s a lot more going on than that. This is about the policies that govern bathrooms across America, and it’s about what kids are being indoctrinated into in school and what parents aren’t being informed about.”
Perkins said he believes the decline in approval ratings is based on these factors, issues that go far beyond promises. Transgender issues in particular make the situation even more complicated.
“I think that in particular is what caused all these approvals to fall,” he said.
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While there is evidence of growing spiritual interest and enthusiasm in America today, Perkins said he believes the change, especially among Republicans, is rooted in “a practical understanding of what these policies will do,” including the moral impact on families. Still, he expects the psychological effects to last as well.
“I hope that perhaps from this we can rediscover the Biblical worldview from a certain perspective, that when we deviate from God’s plan, there are terrible consequences that follow, such as children being transsexual, … schools being taken over by this agenda, and parents being shut out of the process,” Perkins said.
While the statistics on Biblical worldviews remain dire and abysmal, Perkins hopes Christians will do a better job of helping people understand the moral underpinnings of these important issues.
“One of the approaches I take to analyzing Gallup polling data that shows support for same-sex marriage is declining among Republicans who are more open to transcendent truth and morality than today’s Democrats is to connect the dots,” he said. “That’s why I go back to redefining marriage. If we didn’t redefine marriage, we wouldn’t be fighting over the bathroom, if we didn’t redefine marriage, men wouldn’t participate in women’s sports, and if we didn’t redefine marriage, we wouldn’t be trying to protect our children from having healthy body parts cut off.”
Perkins continued, “And when you stray from the biblical truths about marriage, human sexuality, and life, it leads you down a very destructive path. So I hope we can reverse engineer where we are and show people how we got here and get back on the right track.”
All of Gallup’s data on same-sex marriage and LGBT issues can be found here.
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