Millennials 2x as Likely as Their Grandparents to Support Gay Marriage

Support for gay marriage has been steadily growing across the country, even in some corners that many skeptics had not anticipated.

Young people appear to be leading the charge in most circles, and now new research is offering a clearer breakdown of just where and how that support is offered and where some groups draw the line.

The Public Religion Research Institute recently released the results of extensive research into how Americans view certain gay issues, including adoption, marriage and even the overall morality of gay sex.

Millennials were found to be almost twice as likely as their grandparents to support legalized gay marriage. The results also held true among Republicans, where younger members were again twice as likely to offer support compared with party elders.

“The numbers appear to be moving

north in a number of groups.”

Beyond just the young, though, the numbers appear to be moving north in a number of groups. A majority of Catholics was found to now support gay marriage, as was a majority of Jewish-Americans and mainline white Protestants.

In terms of gay couples being allowed to adopt, the report says support for that has grown 20 percent among Americans in just the last 15 years. Overall, 58 percent were found to now support such adoptions.

In something of a contradiction, a slight majority of those asked still had moral issues with the idea of homosexuality. Forty-three percent had no such issues.

Fifty-three percent of Americans were found to support gay marriage, with 41 percent stating they’re against it. That would represent a 10 percent increase in support based on research from just 10 years ago.

A similar drop was seen among the number of Americans who now view gay marriage as somehow violating their own religious beliefs.

Again and again, age is cited in the study as the major factor in the changing results, with 70 percent of Millennials indicating they support same-sex marriage.

From publicreligion.org.