Poll: Approval of same-sex marriage in U.S. reaches new high

Aamer Madhani | USA TODAY

More than two-thirds of Americans say they support same-sex marriage, according to a new Gallup poll published Wednesday.

With 67% of Americans expressing their approval, it marks the highest level of support that the research firm has recorded in the more than 20 years it has been querying Americans on the issue. Gallup said it has tallied 3 percentage point increases in support for each of its last three national surveys on the topic.

When Gallup first queried Americans on the issue in 1996, 27% said they supported gay marriage.

In the latest poll, 83% of respondents who identified as Democrats said they support legal recognition of same-sex marriage, while 44% of Republican respondents and 71% of independents expressed support.

The increased acceptance of same-same marriage — which a 2015 Supreme Court decision made legal in all 50 states — comes as greater number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults are getting married in the U.S. More than 10.4% of LGBT adults are married to a same-sex spouse, according to daily tracking on the issue in 2017.

Gallup found he percentage of American adults identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) increased to 4.5% in 2017, up from 4.1% in 2016 and 3.5% in 2012 when Gallup began tracking the measure. The latest estimate is based on over 340,000 interviews conducted as part of Gallup's daily tracking poll in 2017.

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The increase in Americans identifying as LGBT was driven primarily by millennials — defined in the poll as those born between 1980 and 1999. The percentage of millennials who identify as LGBT expanded from 7.3% to 8.1% from 2016 to 2017, and is up from 5.8% in 2012.

The data on attitudes on same-sex marriage were collected as part of Gallup's annual Values and Morals poll, conducted May 1-10 of 1,024 adults. The polls margin of error error is ±4 percentage points.