Poll: majority of Republicans now support same-sex marriage

A recent Gallup poll reveals support for gay marriage has hit an all-time high of 70 percent with a majority of Republicans for the first time now showing support.

According to Gallup, support for same-sex marriage in the U.S. steadily increased since 1996, where it was at a paltry 27 percent favorability. Support reached a majority level in 2011 at 53 percent even before the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized the unions nationwide.

The new report also shows for the first time gay marriage is supported by a majority of all age groups. Young adults aged 18-34 show 84 percent support. Middle aged adults between 35-54 show 72 percent support. Even older adults aged 55 and up show 60 percent support.

According to the latest poll, a majority of Republican voters now support gay marriage at 55 percent. “The latest increase in support among all Americans is driven largely by changes in Republicans’ views,” Gallup reports.

The steepest increase in Republican support for gay marriage occurred since 2016, the year Donald Trump was elected president, according to data from Gallup.

Democrat voters “have consistently been among the biggest supporters of legal same-sex marriage,” according to Gallup. However, many Democrat politicians did not voice support until very recently. Back when President Biden was vice president under Barack Obama, he said during an interview on Meet the Press that he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and that “marriage is between a man and a woman and states must respect that.”

Donald Trump has been called “the most pro-gay president in history.” In an op-ed published by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Andrew Brett, the president of Broward Log Cabin Republicans claims, “As a matter of fact, Trump has been more openly supportive of gay rights than former President Barack Obama was when he was first elected in 2008, or President Bill Clinton during his eight years in office.”

Among President Trump’s pro-gay policies, according to supporters, were a campaign to decriminalize homosexuality around the world, appointing prominent LGBT people to high positions, and aiming to swiftly end the HIV epidemic in the U.S.

These policies and successes attracted more LGBTs to the Republican party. After the 2020 presidential election, Metro Weekly  reported that exit polls showed a dramatic increase in LGBT votes for Trump. “Following the 2020 election, initial national exit polls indicated that President Donald Trump had more than doubled the percentage of the LGBTQ vote he received in 2016,” the gay blog reported. The outlet claims in 2016 Trump won 13 percent of the LGBT vote while in 2020 he garnered 28 percent.

“Trump brought a lot of people into the Republican Party who were not particularly socially conservative,” one gay man, who requested anonymity, told Outspoken.

“[A]side from Trump, a lot of Republicans and conservatives generally are just resigned to coexistence with same-sex civil marriage and moved on to other matters, such as religious liberty,” he said. “So, I don’t think Trump per se shifted Republicans in support of same-sex civil marriage, but I do think his refusal to make it an issue made the acceleration in the shift of opinion smoother, post-Obergefell.”