LGBTQ Americans

 From the Public Religion Research Institute:

Throughout 2023, PRRI interviewed more than 22,000 adults as part of its American Values Atlas, allowing for the ability to provide a detailed profile of the demographic, religious, and political characteristics of LGBTQ Americans. As in years past, this analysis measures Americans’ attitudes on LGBTQ rights across all 50 states on three key policies: nondiscrimination protections, religiously based service refusals, and same-sex marriage. This year’s report also includes new analysis of the intersection between Christian nationalist views and LGBTQ attitudes in each state.

LGBTQ Americans skew younger, more Democratic, and less religious than other Americans.

• More than one in five young Americans (18-29 years) identify as LGBTQ (22%). One in ten people ages 30-49 (10%), 6% of people between 50 and 64 years, and 3% of people 65 years or older identify as LGBTQ. Twenty-four percent of Gen Z Americans (aged 18 to 25) identify as LGBTQ.
• A plurality of LGBTQ Americans are Democrats (46%); nearly six in ten LGBTQ Americans consider themselves liberal politically (58%).
• The majority of LGBTQ Americans identify as religiously unaffiliated (52%), nearly twice the rate of the general U.S. population (27%). More than a third of LGBTQ Americans identify with a Christian faith (35%) and 5% belong to non-Christian religions.

LGBTQ identification and support for LGBTQ rights differ by state.

• Geographically, the proportion of residents who identify as LGBTQ ranges from 4% in both Alabama and South Carolina, respectively, to 16% in New Mexico.
• Since 2016, LGBTQ identification among those under 30 has increased by about 15 percentage points in blue states and battleground states (from 10% to 25% and from 9% to 23%, respectively) and by more than ten percentage points in red states (from 9% to 20%).
• More than seven in ten residents of red (71%), battleground (75%), and blue (79%) states favor nondiscrimination laws; however, residents of blue states are far more likely to strongly favor LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws compared with their red state counterparts (43% v. 34%).
• Opposition to religious refusals is lowest among red state residents (54%) while two-thirds (66%) of residents in blue states oppose service refusals; 58% of residents in battleground states oppose such refusals.
• While majorities across almost all states support same-sex marriage rights, there is wide variation across the country. In states where same-sex marriage would continue to be legal if the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell decision were overturned, 72% of people favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally compared with 64% in states where same-sex marriage would no longer be legal if Obergefell were overturned.

Strong majorities of Americans — including most people of faith — support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ individuals, but overall support has declined.

• More than three-quarters of Americans supported policies that protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodation (76%) in 2023, a decline from a high of 80% the previous year, in 2022.
• While support for nondiscrimination protections among Democrats stayed steady from 2022 to 2023, support dropped among Republicans by seven percentage points (from 66% to 59%).
• Many religious groups — though not all — registered small drops in support for nondiscrimination protections in the past year.
• Americans aged 18-29 show a gradual decrease in support for LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws over the last three years, declining from a peak of 83% in 2020 to 75% in 2023.

Opposition to religiously based service refusals dropped five percentage points in the past year, from 65% in 2022 to 60% in 2023.

• A majority (59%) of independents and more than eight in ten Democrats (82%) oppose allowing small business owners to refuse service to LGBTQ people based on their religious beliefs; opposition to such refusals has declined among Republicans, from 40% in 2015 to just 34% in 2023.
• A majority of members of most religious groups oppose religiously based service refusals; however, just 30% of white evangelical Protestants oppose religiously based service refusals, down from 37% in 2022.

Support for same-sex marriage has declined among Americans in the last year, dropping from 69% to 67%.Majorities of most religious traditions favor allowing same-sex couples to marry legally. Yet some religious groups show a decline in support from the last year, including Hispanic Catholics, whose support declined from 75% in 2022 to 68% in 2023.
Fewer than half of Latter-day Saints, Hispanic Protestants, white evangelical Protestants, Muslims, and Jehovah’s Witnesses support same-sex marriage.
Older Americans are less supportive of same-sex marriage than younger Americans. However, support among young Americans (18-29) has seen a gradual decline since 2018, when 79% of young Americans supported this right, to 71% today.

LGBTQ rights drive voting decisions of Democrats more than Republicans, younger Americans more than older Americans.

• A plurality of Americans (38%) say that LGBTQ rights is one of various factors they will consider, 30% say they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on this issue, and 29% say they do not see LGBTQ rights as a major issue.
• A plurality of young Americans (38%) and members of Gen Z (38%) say they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on LGBTQ rights.
• Democrats are the most likely to say they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on this issue (38%), compared with Republicans (29%) and independents (25%).

Christian nationalism Rejecters are more likely to support LGBTQ rights than Skeptics, Sympathizers, or Adherents.

• Christian nationalism Rejecters are nearly unanimous (93%) in their support for laws that protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in housing, employment, and accommodation, including more than seven in ten (72%) who strongly favor nondiscrimination laws. Only among Christian nationalism Adherents does a majority (52%) oppose nondiscrimination laws.
• Just 32% of Christian nationalism Adherents oppose allowing religiously based refusals compared with 85% of Christian nationalism Rejecters.
• Just 22% of Christian nationalism Adherents support same-sex marriage, compared with 93% of Christian nationalism Rejecters.

Across all 50 states, scatter plots show a clear pattern: support for Christian nationalism is negatively correlated with support for the three policies discussed in this report.

Getting GOP Support for the Marriage Bill

 At NYT, Annie Karnie explains the successful effort to swing 12 GOP senators in support for the Respect for Marriage Act:

“The inside maneuvering can only go so far without the outside mobilization,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi noted on Thursday before signing the bill, the last official act by Congress before transmitting it to the White House so it could become law.

The push was led by Ken Mehlman, President George W. Bush’s campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee who came out as gay in 2010, and Centerline Action, a centrist nonprofit funded by him and Reginald Brown, a lawyer in Mr. Bush’s White House, among others.

It involved flooding the phone lines of Republican senators with calls from constituents who favored the same-sex marriage measure, presenting them with polling that showed that voters were more likely to support a proponent of the bill than somebody who opposed it, and a public pressure campaign aimed at demonstrating widespread conservative support for the legislation.

“When this popped in the House, we immediately went into action and reached out to all of those operatives and supporters and activists who had been engaged in this issue and kind of got the gang back together,” said James Dozier, the president of Centerline’s board. A former Republican congressional aide, Mr. Dozier is married to a man and has long pressed for same-sex marriage rights.

The work got underway in July, after 47 Republicans — a surprisingly high number — joined Democrats in supporting the bill when it initially passed the House. While the G.O.P. backers amounted to less than a quarter of the party’s contingent in that chamber, the degree of bipartisanship was enough to transform the measure from a mere messaging exercise into a serious legislative effort.

Support for Same-Sex Marriage

 Justin McCarthy at Gallup:

U.S. support for legal same-sex marriage continues to trend upward, now at 70% -- a new high in Gallup's trend since 1996. This latest figure marks an increase of 10 percentage points since 2015, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all states must recognize same-sex marriages.

These data are from Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 3-18.

Today's 70% support for same-sex marriage marks a new milestone in a trend that has pointed upward for a quarter of a century. A small minority of Americans (27%) supported legal recognition of gay and lesbian marriages in 1996, when Gallup first asked the question. But support rose steadily over time, eventually reaching the majority level for the first time in 2011.

LGBT Identification

 Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup:

Gallup's latest update on lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender identification finds 5.6% of U.S. adults identifying as LGBT. The current estimate is up from 4.5% in Gallup's previous update based on 2017 data.

Currently, 86.7% of Americans say they are heterosexual or straight, and 7.6% do not answer the question about their sexual orientation. Gallup's 2012-2017 data had roughly 5% "no opinion" responses.

The latest results are based on more than 15,000 interviews conducted throughout 2020 with Americans aged 18 and older. Gallup had previously reported annual updates from its 2012-2017 daily tracking survey data, but did not routinely measure LGBT identification in 2018 or 2019.

Unmarried America

From the Census:

The Buckeye Singles Council started “National Singles Week” in Ohio in the 1980s to celebrate single life and recognize singles and their contributions to society. The week is now widely observed during the third full week of September (Sept. 18-24 in 2016) as “Unmarried and Single Americans Week,” an acknowledgment that many unmarried Americans do not identify with the word “single” because they are parents, have partners or are widowed. In this edition of Facts for Features, unmarried people include those who were never married, widowed or divorced, unless otherwise noted.

Single Life

109 million  The number of unmarried people in America 18 and older in 2015. This group made up 45 percent of all U.S. residents 18 and older.

Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2015, Table A1

 53% The percentage of unmarried U.S. residents 18 and older who were women in 2015; 47 percent were men.

Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2015, Table A1

63% The percentage of unmarried U.S. residents 18 and older in 2015 who had never been married. Another 24 percent were divorced and 13 percent were widowed.
Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2015, Table A1

19 million The number of unmarried U.S. residents 65 and older in 2015. These seniors made up 18 percent of all unmarried people 18 and older.
Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2015, Table A1

88
The number of unmarried men 18 and older for every 100 unmarried women in the United States in 2015.
Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2015, Table A1
59 million
The number of households maintained by unmarried men and women in 2015. These households comprised 47 percent of households nationwide.
Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2015, Table A1

35 million The number of people who lived alone in 2015. They comprised 28 percent of all households, up from 17 percent in 1970.
Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2015, Table H-1, America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 1960 to Present, Table HH-4

Parenting

36% The percentage of women age 15 to 50 with a birth in the last 12 months, as of 2014, who were widowed, divorced or never married.
Source:
2014 American Community Survey, Table B13002

39% The percentage of opposite-sex, unmarried-partner couples in 2015 that lived with at least one biological child of either partner.
Source:
America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2015, Table UC3

788,730 The number of unmarried grandparents who were responsible for most of the basic care of a co-resident grandchild in 2014; 30 percent of coresident grandparents responsible for their grandchildren were unmarried.
Source:
2014 American Community Survey, Table B10057

Unmarried Couples

7 million The number of unmarried-partner households in 2014. Of this number, 448,271 were same-sex households.
Source:
2014 American Community Survey Table, B11009

Voters

39% The percentage of voters in the 2012 presidential election who were unmarried, compared with 24 percent of voters in the 1972 presidential election.
Source:
Voting and Registration in the Election of 2012, Table 9 Characteristics of New Voters: 1972

35% The percentage of voters in the 2014 November congressional election who were unmarried.
Source:
Voting and Registration in the Election of 2014, Table 9

Education

87% The percentage of unmarried people 25 and older in 2015 who had completed high school or more education
Source:
Educational Attainment in the United States: 2015, Table 2

27% The percentage of unmarried people 25 and older in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree or more education.
Source:
Educational Attainment in the United States: 2015, Table 2

Business and Social Issues

Joel Fox writes at Fox and Hounds:

Does business want to be in the middle of the political and culture wars that gain wide media attention and have passionate advocates on both sides of the issues?

The answer is generally no, although you’ll never hear that spoken by some executives who want to portray their businesses as good corporate citizens that must take a stand on moral issues.

All well and good, but as some critics point out, fairly, businesses are not always consistent on their moral stands. For example, as Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich noted when he voted no on a county resolution to boycott North Carolina over the transgender bathroom issue, “The corporations and entertainers and others are calling for the boycott of North Carolina — however, they are more than happy to entertain or conduct business in countries which support and sponsor the persecution, oppression, and violence against individuals based on gender, religion, and sexual orientation.”

Why do businesses take a split stand? Because they believe they can influence state governments but don’t feel they have the power to change attitudes of foreign governments. Businesses are also afraid of the actions foreign governments might take against them. Apple, for instance, has taken a strong position on gay rights and against discrimination, even publicly opposing California’s anti-gay marriage Proposition 8. Yet, the company has not taken such a public stand against China where the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission says discrimination against gays and lesbians is still written into many laws.

Coverage of Same-Sex Marriage

The Pew Research Center reports:

In a period marked by Supreme Court deliberations on the subject, the news media coverage provided a strong sense of momentum towards legalizing same-sex marriage, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center. Stories with more statements supporting same-sex marriage outweighed those with more statements opposing it by a margin of roughly 5-to-1.

In the coverage studied, the central argument among proponents of same-sex marriage was one of civil rights. Arguments against were more varied, but most often voiced the idea that same-sex marriage would hurt society and the institution of traditional marriage.

Almost half (47%) of the nearly 500 stories studied from March 18 (a week prior to the Supreme Court hearings), through May 12, primarily focused on support for the measure, while 9% largely focused on opposition and 44% had a roughly equal mix of both viewpoints or were neutral. In order for a story to be classified as supporting or opposing same sex marriage, statements expressing that position had to outnumber the opposite view by at least 2-to-1. Stories that did not meet that threshold were defined as neutral or mixed.

Many of the events themselves during the period studied, such as announcements by politicians and state legislation, reflected movement towards same-sex marriage. Polls show the nation's views have been shifting as well, though there remains significant opposition with 51% of the public in support of legalizing same-sex marriage versus 42% opposed, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.[1]

This news media focus on support held true whether the stories were reported news articles or opinion pieces, and was also the case across nearly all media sectors studied. All three of the major cable networks, for instance, had more stories with significantly more supportive statements than opposing, including Fox News.

In addition to the main set of news media, this study also examined same-sex marriage coverage in three other media segments: Twitter, the Huffington Post - which has a dedicated microsite to "Gay Voices" and produced so much coverage that it was examined separately from the rest of the news media - and a mix of LGBT news outlets.

Twitter postings on the subject were nearly evenly split between support and opposition for the measure, aligning much more closely with public opinion than with the news media. Coverage on the Huffington Post, on the other hand, was even more tilted towards support of same-sex marriage than the rest of the news media. Indeed, 62% of the 365 stories on the site were dominated with statements of support - very close to the level of support in the LGBT news outlets studied.

More Ahistorical Reporting on the Platform

Time analyzes the GOP platform:

On social issues, the GOP grows ever more conservative. The platform defines marriage as between one man and one woman, assails an “activist judiciary” for decreeing otherwise at the state level and urges a crackdown on Internet pornography. Separate planks support prayer in public schools and the pubic display of the Ten Commandments as “a reflection of our shared Judeo-Christian heritage.” The party would ban all abortions, asserting that “the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.”

Conservative, yes, but more conservative than before?  Hardly. All of the positions in this passage have been in GOP platforms for years, if not decades.

• The 1992 platform opposed same-sex marriage.
• The 2000 platform supported a crackdown on Internet porn.
• The 1972 platform supported voluntary school prayer.
• The 2000 platform supported public display of the Ten Commendments.
• The 1984 platform, and every one since, has declared that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life.

Listing "strange obsessions," the article says:  "There is an obligatory prohibitions against the use of “foreign law by U.S. courts in interpreting our Constitution and laws,” a reference to the right’s infatuation with Sharia."  The 2008 platform called for the appointment of judges who would not "inject foreign law into American jurisprudence."  The issue was not Sharia, but the actual practice of some Supreme Court justices of citing foreign law in their opinions. Far from being a "strange obsession," the issue has been the subject of lively legal debate for a number of years.

Public Opinion: Ideology and Social Issues

Our chapter on public opinion looks at political ideology.  Gallup reports some new data:

Americans are more than twice as likely to identify themselves as conservative rather than liberal on economic issues, 46% to 20%. The gap is narrower on social issues, but conservatives still outnumber liberals, 38% to 28%.
...

For the most part, Americans fall on the same ideological side on economic and social issues. Sixty-one percent are conservative, moderate, or liberal on both dimensions, with the largest percentage, 31%, conservative on both. Fifteen percent are liberal on both social and economic issues, and 15% are moderate on both.

Gallup also finds:

The 41% of Americans who now identify themselves as "pro-choice" is down from 47% last July and is one percentage point below the previous record low in Gallup trends, recorded in May 2009. Fifty percent now call themselves "pro-life," one point shy of the record high, also from May 2009.

But lest anyone think that the conservative trend is uniform, consider opinion on sexual orientation:

The slight majority of American adults, 54%, consider gay or lesbian relations morally acceptable. Public acceptance of gay/lesbian relations as morally acceptable grew slowly but steadily from 38% in 2002 to 56% in 2011 and is now holding at the majority level.

This Gallup trend mirrors the growth in public support for legalizing gay marriage, which has risen from 42% support in 2004 to 50% or greater support in the last two years. Americans' support for gay rights on both questions leveled off in this year's Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 3-6.

Federalism, Same-Sex Marriage, and Abortion

At the Los Angeles Times, Mark Z. Barabak writes of tension in Republican ranks between support of decentralized government and opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. One example is Texas Governor Rick Perry:

A tea party favorite, Perry frequently cites the importance of the Constitution's 10th Amendment — holy writ to small-government advocates — which was intended to limit the powers of Washington in favor of the states. (Many proponents prefer to speak of state sovereignty rather than the more freighted term states' rights, which was invoked across the segregated South in opposition to the civil rights movement.)

Perry's recent troubles began with a speech to GOP donors at an Aspen Institute forum in Colorado.

"Our friends in New York six weeks ago passed a statute that said marriage can be between two people of the same sex. And you know what? That's New York and that's their business and that's fine with me," Perry said to applause. "That is their call. If you believe in the 10th Amendment, stay out of their business."

Days later, speaking to reporters in Houston, Perry took a similar stance on abortion, saying that if Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, were overturned, it would be up to states to set their laws regarding the procedure.

The remarks quickly circulated among social conservatives, many of whom took deep umbrage.
...

Perry soon backed off his comment on same-sex marriage. In a radio interview with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group, Perry said, "I probably needed to add a few words after that 'it's fine with me.' "

As we note in our textbook, there is a flip side: liberals who embrace states' rights on these issues. Nearly sixty years after Hubert Humphrey implored Democrats to "get out of the shadow of states' rights," Senator Dianne Feinstein invoked the term to oppose a federal ban on same-sex marriage. As the textbook puts it:

Like many other Democrats, she saw the proposal as a threat to civil rights.

Unlike Humphrey, she found virtue in states’ rights. The ban, she said, “strikes

at the heart of states’ rights in the area of family law and, in doing so, it actually

undermines our Constitution. Moreover, I believe Americans believe the states

should deal with same-sex marriage as the states see fit. And so do I.”

President Obama has also used the term:

• From a statement of administration policy opposing an appropriations bill: "Section 810 of the bill prevents the District of Columbia from using its own funds for abortions, which undermines the principle of states' rights and of D.C. home rule."
• From remarks on signing a memorandum on non-discrimination: "Among the steps we have not yet taken is to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. I believe it's discriminatory, I think it interferes with states' rights, and we will work with Congress to overturn it."

Clergy and Same-Sex Marriage

Our chapter on civic culture stresses that religious political activism is just as much a part of the left as the right. Samuel Freedman writes in The New York Times:

Early in the week that ended with New York enacting same-sex marriage, the Rev. Anna Taylor Sweringen stood in a hallway just outside the State Senate chambers. She wore her clerical collar and held a sign saying, “Equality now.” Around her gathered ministers and rabbis of similar sentiment, all in Albany to lobby and pray for the right of gay couples to wed.
...

The conventional — and erroneous — perception of the gay-marriage issue is that it pits secular forces against religious ones. From New York to California, wherever and whenever the battle has flared, news coverage has focused almost entirely on the religious groups who uniformly denounce it: Mormons, Roman Catholics, evangelical Christians and many Hispanic Pentecostals and African-American Protestants.

Yet the passage of same-sex marriage in New York last month, just two years after its defeat here, attests to the concerted, sustained efforts by liberal Christian and Jewish clergy to advocate for it in the language of faith, to counter the language of morality voiced by foes. In so doing, they provided a kind of political and theological cover to the moderate and conservative state senators who cast the vital swing votes for a 33-to-29 margin.

“It’s like affirmation that this is a spiritual issue, and that it’s integral to a person’s faith,” said Ms. Taylor Sweringen, 54, during an interview this week at her Brooklyn home. “How can you be a person of faith and not be where the issues of justice are being debated?”

Julian E. Zelizer observed the New York vote from his perspective as a history professor at Princeton, a former faculty member at the State University at Albany and the son of a Conservative Jewish rabbi.

“If religious support is fractured, and supporters of the legislation can point to clergy who are on their side,” he wrote in an e-mail, “then it’s easier to counteract the claim of religious conservatives who say there is only one answer to this question. As in previous examples, politicians draw on clergy to give themselves moral authority when taking on these kinds of social and cultural issues. We know more about how the right has done it, but liberals can do the same.”

Campaign Pledges

The Wall Street Journal reports on campaign pledges:

Bob Vander Plaats, an activist for socially conservative causes, has the kind of sway with Iowa Republicans that has drawn the GOP presidential candidates to his door. He says he plans to endorse one.

But first, Mr. Vander Plaats wants to know: Will the candidates sign his pledge to oppose gay marriage, pornography and Sharia, or Islamic law?

Mr. Vander Plaats' pledge is one of several that activists or groups are putting before the candidates. An alliance including Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) and FreedomWorks, both backers of tea-party groups, want candidates to sign a "Cut, Cap and Balance" promise on budget policy. Another group, the Susan B. Anthony List, is advancing an antiabortion pledge.

The most famous: A pledge to oppose all tax increases, initiated 25 years ago by Grover Norquist and his group, Americans for Tax Reform.

Each initiative—at least five groups have sponsored a pledge—has drawn signatures from some of the top GOP candidates. Mr. Vander Plaats, who led the successful effort last year to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices for a ruling on gay marriage, unveiled his pledge this week and says he quickly received promises from Rep. Michele Bachmann (R.-Minn.) and former Sen. Rick Santorum that they would sign.

Sponsors say their pledges elevate important issues and force candidates to take a stand. But some Republicans say the pledges are problematic, and that candidates should express their positions in their own words, rather than cede the terms to outside groups.

A followup story illustrates one of the disadvantages of signing a pledge:

Iowa conservative Bob Vander Plaats and his advocacy group, The Family Leader, removed a reference to slavery from their anti-gay-marriage pledge.

The pledge, part of a trend to pin down politicians on a variety of issues, has the backing of two Republican presidential candidates.

A version of the document posted on the group’s website Saturday, dropped this line from its forward: “Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”

Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage and Abortion

The Public Religion Research Institute has issued a new study of public opinion. Some findings:

The binary “pro-choice”/“pro-life” labels do not reflect the complexity of Americans’ views on abortion. Seven-in-ten Americans say the term “pro-choice” describes them somewhat or very well, and nearly two-thirds simultaneously say the term “pro-life” describes them somewhat or very well. This overlapping identity is present in virtually every demographic group.

The decoupling of attitudes on abortion and same-sex marriage suggests that these topics, which served in the past as the heart of the “values” agenda, are no longer necessarily linked in the minds of Americans.

• Roughly the same percentage of Americans said abortion should be legal in all or most cases in 1999 (57%) as say this today (56%).
• In contrast, the percentage of Americans who said marriages between same-sex couples should be recognized by the law as valid has grown 18 points over this same period, from 35% in 1999 to 53% in 2011.

Millennials are less supportive of legal abortion than their demographic profile would suggest.

• Millennials generally have traits associated with higher levels of support for the legality of abortion: they are more educated, more liberal, and more likely to be religiously unaffiliated.
• Millennials exemplify the decoupling of attitudes on legal abortion and same-sex marriage. They are much more likely than the general public to favor same-sex marriage, but they are not significantly more likely than the general public to support the legality of abortion (60% vs. 56% in the general public).
• Millennials have largely positive top of mind associations with same-sex marriage but have largely negative top of mind associations with abortion.
• Millennials are conflicted about the morality of abortion, but most say same gender sexual relationships are morally acceptable. Nearly 6-in-10 (57%) Millennials say sex between two adults of the same gender is morally acceptable, compared to only 46% who say having an abortion is morally acceptable.
• Unlike all other age groups, Millennials register different levels of support for the availability and legality of abortion. On the one hand, Millennials are strongly committed to the availability of abortion and are significantly more likely than the general public to say that at least some health care professionals in their community should provide legal abortions (68% vs. 58% respectively). But they are no more likely than the general public to say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. These findings suggest general measures of legality may not fully capture support for legal abortion among Millennials.

The Washington Times reports:

Karlyn Bowman, a public opinion analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said the data found in this and most abortion studies are “profoundly contradictory.” She said that although a majority of people will state abortion is murder, a majority also think it should be legal in some or all cases.

“They are at the same time pro-life and pro-choice … they respect the sanctity of life and the value of choice,” Mrs. Bowman said.

The study highlights this by stating two-thirds of Americans surveyed claimed they were both pro-life and pro-choice.

Melissa Deckman, an associate professor of political science at Washington College, said the pro-life arguments appeared to be winning the political battle, noting that pro-lifers are three times more likely than pro-choice supporters to say that abortion was a critical issue for them.

“They’re highly motivated. They recruit candidates and become legally and politically savvy. They help promote legislation,” Ms. Deckman said.

She also stated the pro-choice movement seems to be on the defensive, and that this would result in access to the procedure slowly disappearing.