Navigate to News section

Gay Marriage on the March

2011 was first year of majority support in U.S.

by
Marc Tracy
February 28, 2012

According to the Public Religion Research Institute, 2011 was the first year, in their measuring anyway, in which supporting gay marriage was not a minority position among Americans: As of May, 51 percent were in favor, 43 percent were opposed. Given that it was an extremely big deal when Ellen DeGeneres came out and that was, like, 15 years ago, I don’t think you require particularly advanced math to see where we’ll be in another 15 years.

Meanwhile, a newly released poll breaks down the numbers by religion. The group that most strongly supported gay marriage did so 76 to 20, with nearly a majority—44 percent—saying they strongly favor it. Hint: This group was not “unaffiliated.” Unaffiliated had the second-strongest support of all the religious groups.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.