Love is love. Love is winning.
The Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institute recently released data that says more Americans support same-sex marriage than ever before. Specifically, 70% of Americans approve of marriage equality. That includes most political and religious groups surveyed. Though separating respondents by political ideologies told an even more detailed story, according to USA Today. Eighty percent of Democrats, 76% of Independents, and half of Republicans are in support of gay marriage.
But how did respondents of various religious and racial/ethnic backgrounds respond to the idea? Generally, it was in a favorable way, according to NBC’s WRCBtv. 90% of religious Americans who marked themselves as unaffiliated with any specific religion or branch approved of marriage equality. Then 72% of non-Christian religious groups, 78% of Hispanic Catholics, 68% of Hispanic Protestants, 57% of Black Protestants, 79% of White mainline Protestants, 67% of White Catholics, and 565 of people belonging to other Christian groups said the same.
In the end, White evangelical Protestants were the only religious group to have a majority oppose same-sex marriage. 63% of respondents belonging to this group were against the idea of gay couples getting married.
“I think we are definitively at a place where same-sex marriage is no longer a part of the American culture wars,” Robert Jones, the founder/CEO of PRRI and a lead of the 2020 American Values Survey, told CNN. “It has become a near-consensus issue. Every age group, every racial group, every education group, both men and women and every religious group with one exception are now all in majority support.”
This news came in the same week that Pope Francis announced his support of same-sex unions. While that’s not exactly the same as announcing support of same-sex marriage, it shows that there is a movement towards acceptance of same-sex couples from major religious figures.
That said, same-sex marriage is still in danger within the United States of America. The U.S. Congress is currently reviewing the candidacy of Amy Coney Barrett for a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. With her homophobic past in education and her use of the biased term “sexual preferences,” many are concerned that Coney Barrett could add another anti-gay vote to upcoming SCOTUS rulings. Barrett has also avoided answering questions about whether she believes gay marriage is an inherent right.
With that in mind, American citizens need to vocalize this reported support of same-sex marriage. Otherwise, love may not win in the near future.
