Support for Gay Marriage Continues to Decline, Gallup Finds
The decline is driven largely by Republicans, whose acceptance of same-sex relations and transgender identity has fallen sharply.
U.S. attitudes toward gay marriage, same-sex relations, and transgender identity have continued to decline after reaching peak levels several years ago, according to recent polling.
The backslide in terms of viewing LGBTQ issues in a favorable light has been driven largely by a decrease in pro-LGBTQ views among Republicans, according to Gallup, which surveyed more than 1,000 U.S. adults from May 1 to May 17, 2026.
Starting in 1996, Gallup has annually asked, as part of its Values and Beliefs Survey, whether Americans support same-sex marriage. In the first year, only 27% of U.S. adults said they supported it. That number gradually increased, with significant gains each year after 2010, peaking at 71% in 2022 and 2023. In 2024, support fell to 69% and has continued to decline ever since.
Support for same-sex marriage stands at 87% among Democratic voters and 67% among independents, but only 37% among Republicans. That marks a moderate decline among independents and a significant drop among Republicans, 55% of whom said they supported same-sex marriage as recently as 2022.
Gallup also asked Americans whether they view same-sex relations as morally acceptable or morally wrong. In 2001, the first year the question was asked, 40% of U.S. adults said they viewed same-sex relations as morally acceptable. By 2022, that figure had risen to 71%. It dropped sharply in 2023, when only 64% of U.S. adults found same-sex activity morally acceptable. That number now stands at 62% — its lowest since 2016.
Republicans have also become less accepting of same-sex relations, with only 35% viewing them as morally acceptable, down 21 points from a peak of 56% in 2022. Meanwhile, the percentage of independents who view same-sex relations as morally acceptable has declined more modestly, falling from 72% to 64% since 2022. By comparison, 81% of Democrats view same-sex relations as morally acceptable.
Currently, only 5% of Republicans say changing one’s gender is morally acceptable, compared with 42% of independents and 60% of Democrats. Support for that view has declined most significantly among Republicans, 22% of whom found it morally acceptable just five years ago.
By comparison, the percentage of independents who said changing one’s gender was morally acceptable has fallen from 48% in 2021 to 42% in 2026. Support for that view among Democrats has also declined, from 67% in 2021 to 60% today, including a significant decrease over the past year.
In 2021, when Gallup first began asking about the morality of changing one’s gender, 46% of U.S. adults found transitioning to be morally acceptable, while 51% labeled it morally wrong. Those numbers have since moved in opposite directions, with only 38% of U.S. adults currently saying they believe changing one’s gender is morally acceptable and 57% labeling it “morally wrong.”
For about two decades, Americans’ tolerance of LGBTQ people increased, but it has declined since peaking in the early 2020s. That decrease — again fueled by a drop in support among Republicans — has coincided with efforts by conservative politicians to push back against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, as well as state-level laws seeking to restrict transgender rights or refusing to recognize transgender identity as valid.
Due to the heated rhetoric surrounding those laws, as well as efforts by social conservatives to stoke anti-LGBTQ sentiment among the general public — including by ginning up opposition to visibly LGBTQ events — many LGBTQ people increasingly find themselves labeled “pedophiles” or “groomers.” As long as LGBTQ identity remains a cultural wedge issue in politics, support for same-sex marriage could continue to fall, while views of same-sex activity or gender transitions as “morally wrong” become more common in the years ahead.
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