A new survey shows that more religious
Americans support marriage equality than oppose it.
The poll, called The
American Values Atlas and released last month, found that 47
percent of religious Americans favor legalizing same-sex marriage,
while 45 percent remain opposed.
Writing at The
Atlantic, Robert P. Jones, CEO of the Public Religion
Research Institute (PRRI), the group behind the survey, notes that
support has increased dramatically over the past dozen years.
“Many religious conservatives
continue to insist that the same-sex marriage debate pits religious
Americans against non-religious Americans,” Jones wrote. “That
was largely true even as recently as 2003, when Massachusetts became
the first state to legalize gay marriage.”
“Over the last decade, though, the
debate has shifted from one between religious and non-religious
Americans to one that primarily pits older, conservative Christians
against moderate, progressive, or younger Christians, Jews and the
religiously unaffiliated.”
According to the survey – based on
40,000 interviews – sixty percent of Catholics support marriage
equality, up 25 percentage points since 2003. Support is even
greater among white mainline Protestants at 62 percent.
“Even white evangelical Protestants,
who remain one of the groups most strongly opposed to same-sex
marriage, have more than doubled their support (from 12 percent to 28
percent) over the last decade. And among younger white evangelical
Protestants between the ages of 18 and 29, support sits at 45
percent,” Jones added.