Republican support for marriage equality, LGBTQ+ rights sinks: poll
· Axios
Republican support for marriage equality has continued to plummet with fewer than 4 in 10 saying same-sex marriages should be valid under the law, according to new polling.
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The big picture: The Supreme Court signaled that its landmark decision recognizing same-sex marriage nationwide remains settled law when it turned away a long-shot challenge last year. But the lead plaintiff in the 2015 case and other LGBTQ+ advocates warn the fight is far from over.
Driving the news: While a majority of Americans still back the validity of same-sex marriages, Republican support has slipped sharply — from 55% in 2021 and 2022 to just 37%, per Gallup findings out Wednesday.
- Two decades ago, just around 42% of Americans supported same-sex marriages according to Gallup polling, compared to 65% today. But that's down from early 2020s peaks of around 7 in 10.
- Meanwhile, the supportive share of Republicans has slipped back to where it was in 2015.
Zoom in: Republicans had gradually become more supportive of same-sex marriage, paralleling the national trend, says Jeffrey Jones, a senior editor at Gallup.
- "And then, it kind of changed — and I think certainly [the] 2024 campaign could have been part of this," he says.
Context: Upon entering office for his second term, Trump moved to erase years of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts within the federal government and beyond, on top of more pointed policies blocking access to healthcare, sports and self-identification on federal documents for the transgender community.
- While Trump has elevated openly gay people in administration leadership, National Center for LGBTQ+ Rights legal director Shannon Minter, notes that some major supporters, like The Heritage Foundation and Alliance Defending Freedom, "have an openly anti-gay agenda."
Zoom out: Republican lawmakers in several states have called for the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision on same-sex marriage, and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have panned the decision in the years since.
- With marriage equality came a "dramatic transformation" in how society viewed their LGBTQ+ peers, neighbors and children, Minter says. "And it is devastating to see any of that ground being lost again."
Friction point: Even though the Supreme Court shut down former county clerk Kim Davis' request to reconsider its 2015 decision, right-wing efforts dedicated to overturning same-sex marriage persist.
- Earlier this year, a coalition of dozens of conservative and religious organizations launched an initiative combatting same-sex marriage under the sworn intent of centering children in the debate.
What they're saying: Bipartisan support has helped fuel key legal wins for the LGBTQ+ community, says Minter.
- He notes that conservative attorney Ted Olson led the charge against California's Proposition 8 ban, conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy penned the Obergefell decision and some Republicans backed the Respect for Marriage Act.
- "All of those things are almost unthinkable now, I think, because ... there is now such a hyper-partisan environment in this country," he says.
Worth noting: Marriage equality is about more than acceptance, says Katie Blair, the vice president of advocacy for PFLAG National. It's also about the hundreds of rights and privileges that hinge on marital status.
- "Those are the things that we're fighting for," she says, adding that rhetoric and policy has effectively green-lit thinking "in hateful, harmful ways."
The bottom line: Most Americans still say same-sex marriages should be valid — and at the end of the day, Blair says, queer families face the same hurdles as straight ones.
- "Our families, they're trying to put food on the table, they're trying to get their kids through school ... something like this is just something that we don't have time or tolerance for."
Methodology: Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted May 1-17, 2026, with a random sample of 1,001 adults. For results based on the total sample, the margin of sampling error is +/- 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Go deeper: Here's where same-sex marriage would be banned without Obergefell