National Support For Marriage Equality At 44%

Gallup has released a new poll which shows that opposition to marriage equality has fallen slightly, but is still a majority position in the United States, nationally.

These results are based on Gallup's Values and Beliefs Poll, which has tracked attitudes toward legal same-sex marriage annually since 2004. When Gallup first asked about the legality of gay marriage in a 1996 poll, 68% of Americans were opposed and 27% in favor.

Since that time, support has increased among the major political and ideological subgroups, though more among those on the left of the political spectrum than among those on the right. Currently, a majority of Democrats favor legal gay marriage, as do a majority of moderates and liberals, with liberals the most supportive of these groups, at 70%.

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Over time, Americans have become more accepting of legal same-sex marriage, and a growing number of subgroups now show majority support for it. However, religious and conservative segments of the U.S. population remain largely opposed -- even though their support for gay marriage has also increased in recent years. Because religious and conservative groups are larger than nonreligious and left-leaning groups in the United States, overall, more Americans remain opposed to, rather than in favor of, same-sex marriage.

The rate of increase in support for marriage equality from 1996 to 2010 has not been uniform among sub-groups, of course. Moderate voters have had the largest increase in support (24 points, to 56%), with conservatives having the smallest (11 points, to 25%).


The poll was conducted May 3-6,2010 off 1,029 adults 18 years or older using random-digit dialing. It has a margin of error of ±4 percentage points.