Support for same-sex marriage reaches record high of 70 percent: Gallup

Support for same-sex marriage in the United States has reached a record high, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday.

The survey found that 70 percent of respondents in the U.S. said that marriages between same-sex couples should be recognized by the law as valid, an increase of 3 percentage points from June 2020.

Gallup found that the latest increase in support for same-sex marriage was driven by Republicans, with 55 percent saying it should be recognized as valid. This is the first time Gallup recorded a majority of Republicans supporting same-sex marriage.

Meanwhile, 73 percent of independents expressed support for same-sex marriage, up slightly from the 68- to 71-percent range recorded over the past few years. In addition, 83 percent of Democrats expressed support for same-sex marriage, remaining steady over the past few years.

Gallup first began gauging Americans’ views on same-sex marriage in 1996, finding at the time that only 27 percent of Americans supported legal recognition of gay and lesbian marriages.

Gallup said it first recorded a majority support for gay marriage in 2011. When the Supreme Court ruled that all states must recognize same-sex marriage in 2015, support for gay marriage reached 60 percent.

Gallup’s latest poll surveyed 1,016 adults between May 3-18, 2021. The margin of sampling error is 4 percentage points.