More Than 20% Of Americans Still Think Homosexuality Should Be Illegal

There’s no denying the progress Americans have made toward accepting the LGBT community, we still have a long way to go: According to a new Gallup poll a full 23% of Americans still believe gay sex should be illegal.

Gallup has surveyed the public about views on same-sex relationships and the laws that government then annually since 1978. Back then, 43% believed homosexuality should be illegal, and the same percentage felt it should be decriminalized. Since the mid-80s, those numbers have steadily tilted in our favor.

But even two years after the Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land, nearly a quarter of us still think homosexuality should be a crime.

Sodomy was a felony in every state up until 1961, when Illinois repealed its statute. It wasn’t until 2003’s Lawrence v. Texas that the Supreme Court ruled sodomy laws were uniformly unconstitutional.

Although the laws were rarely enforced, they were used to justify discrimination and violence against LGBT people, and could could be used in custody hearings. Even after Lawrence, many states dragged their feet: Montana didn’t remove “sexual contact or sexual intercourse between two persons of the same sex” from its definition of deviant sexual conduct until 2013.

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The good news is that 72% of Americans don’t believe homosexuality is a crime—up from 68% just last year. The same survey revealed that 64% of Americans approve of full marriage equality, up from 61% last year.

We like those numbers but, with religious-freedom laws and bathroom bills being considered in legislatures across the country, it’s clear we’re not out of the woods yet.