GOP support for same-sex marriage keeps dropping

Bryan Metzger
Updated ·2 min read
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  • Support for same-sex marriage continues to fall among Republicans, new Gallup polling shows.

  • Overall support for same-sex marriage has seemingly plateaued at about 70%.

  • The polling comes amid a yearslong conservative backlash against LGBTQ+ rights

Support for same-sex marriage among Republicans continues to slide.

In new polling from Gallup, just 46% of Republicans said marriages between same-sex couples should be recognized as legally valid.

That's down from 49% last year. Support for same-sex marriage peaked at 55% among Republicans in 2021 and 2022.

Just 40% of Republicans said that same-sex marriage is morally acceptable. That's a minor change from last year but represents a steep drop from 2022 when 56% of Republicans answered in the affirmative.

Gallup's polling has found that overall support for the legality of same-sex marriage in America has hovered at about 70% since 2021, largely plateauing after years of steady increase.

In many ways, 2022 was a high watermark for GOP support of same-sex marriage.

That year, 12 Republican senators and 39 House Republicans voted for the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill that protected same-sex marriage amid concerns about the practice's standing after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion to the ruling that overturned Roe that he believed the court's precedent on same-sex marriage should be revisited.

Since then, Republicans have waged a culture war against portions of the LGBTQ+ movement, focusing in particular on access to gender-affirming care for transgender people.

At times, that movement has spilled over into broader attacks on Pride Month and gay people in general.

"I think people are conflating same-sex rights with transgender rights, and they are very different issues," Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, one of the Republicans who voted for the same-sex-marriage bill, told Business Insider last year.

Mike Johnson, who has a history of opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, was elected speaker by House Republicans last fall. One of the three speaker candidates who failed to win before him — Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota — lost in part due to his support for the Respect for Marriage Act.

Yet Johnson hasn't taken aim at same-sex marriage in his new position, and over the weekend, he campaigned for a gay Republican candidate in a New York swing seat.

Read the original article on Business Insider